"Locating" Those Head Scarves

Sorry for the previous write-up here.  Apparently The BAG was a little sleep deprived last evening.

What I was originally referring to was the image accompanying last Thursday’s NYT Obama headscarf story (which also called out the Obama campaign for excessive stagecraft and refusing to playing ball with the press).  My thought was that the accompanying picture — with a detached looking Obama and emphasizing the crowd behind him at the June 16th Gore endorsement rally in Detroit — seemed to be hinting at the absence of the Muslim women.

With that background in mind, my focus switched to Tuesday’s NYT front page image (above).

Besides my feeling that the accompanying article —“Muslim Voters Detect A Snub From Obama” — represented a five-day-old effort to keep the story alive, it also bothered me that The Times seemed to be speaking for the Arab-American community in detailing the perceived slight.  Beyond that, however, I thought this photo represented a heavy-handed gesture, using a photo taken last February at a large Obama rally to personify the two “disappeared” Islamic Obama supporters.

(image: Emmanuel Dunand/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images. February 2008. nytimes.com)