First Impressions
According to the most recent NYT Magazine cover story, the Democrats have improved their ability to frame language to shape the political debate. What I can’t understand, however, is why the “framing war” seems to be confined to words. What about pictures? In introducing Bush’s first Supreme Court nominee,...
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Move Over Zarqawi: The New Iranian President And The 1979 Embassy Take-Over
The Administration would be happy for you to believe that the new president of Iran helped lead the take-over of the U.S. embassy in ’79. So would your own eyes. How much does the administration single-handedly create new evil-doers and how much does the press go along? One thing...
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Hill and Two Bills: Checking In on the Clinton Comeback
In spite of all the adulation heaped on Karl Rove, maybe he’s not exactly the PR legend he’s been promoted to be. (And who know how he would have fared the last four years if he hadn’t had 9/11 to exploit. And re-exploit.) In any case, the Clintons are...
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Target Hillary
At the risk of lending more thought to the thoughtless anti-Hillary assault that Ed Klein has just published, I wanted to take a look at one more photo page from the book — if just to better understand some of the dynamics of the Hillary assault. (This doesn’t imply...
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Ed Klein and Matt Drudge's Stolen Moments
Ed Klein’s Attack Book, "The Truth About Hillary," and Matt Drudge’s Profile of It, Blatantly Misuse a News Photo to Slander the Clintons. Doing Some "Photojournalistic Forensic Work," the BAG Takes Apart the Propaganda and Breaks Down the Image. What if you are a former Newsweek editor and a...
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Away from Sesame Street
Who can account for Laura Bush this past May 25th? We know Mrs. Bush was in Egypt on May 22nd. That’s the day she was photographed with Suzanne Mubarak at the Itahedeya Palace in Cairo, the two sitting in the chairs President Mubarak uses to greet foreign dignitaries in...
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Bolton-ed On
I know the BAG’s visual analysts at-large are going to have a field day with this one. Here are a few of my takes: I love the black-and-white. It’s brilliant. What better expression of this Cheney clone. It’s not even metaphorical. This guy is the picture of severity! (This...
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Cell, Sell, Sell
Typically, the BAG tends to looks at one picture at a time. However, I thought it might be interesting to consider the visual politics surrounding one issue, thinking about how the White House is used to stringing a series of strategic photo ops into a campaign. Obviously, in putting...
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Uniform Response
This was a photo from Monday — right before the Administration turned a magazine blurb into an opportunity to reset the news cycle. Given the magnitude of the bleeding in Iraq, the problem can’t help but find its way back into the headlines. In the meantime, the White House’s...
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Killer Issue
Now that we know Newsweek Magazine is the source of anti-American feeling in the Arab world, the visual evidence is starting to come in. Here, courtesy of AFP, we see how the trouble got started. Obviously, upon hearing that Newsweek documented U.S. desecration of the Quran, Pakastani men rushed...
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Schwarzenegger From Below
Is the Gov slipping? If you’ve been following the BAG, you know I’ve been keeping tabs on the Arnold show. From the latest visual coverage, however, I sense something is wrong. Until recently, the press had been happy to follow the director. Lately though, it seems a revolt is ...
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Surrounded
I had the chance on Thursday to actually listen to Bush’s press conference. When you just read the transcript, you don’t get the flavor of how condescending he is to reporters. This recent photo on the White House website suggests how Bush sees and distorts the role of the...
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Getting The Business
Is spin coming unspun? In other words, is spin starting to draw more attention to itself than to what it’s spinning? What suggests this possibility are lead articles in two different sections of Sunday’s NYT. On the front page of the Business section (maybe I am focusing a little...
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Sugar and Spice and Everything Rice
In spite of her reputation as George Bush’s closest advisor and confidant, Condi Rice seemed a minor player in W’s first term. To the extent she distinguished herself at all, it was in helping over-dramatize the threat of Iraq’s WMD, and failing to heed the advice of her staff,...
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The Selling of the Apocalypse
For years now, the Administration has been playing on fear to sell its agenda. Through intimidation, manipulation and clever marketing, this tactic has successfully scared off the media and the Democrats from attacking their message or confronting their methods. For a good while, they squeezed the juice out of...
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State of the Union Show
I know everybody’s atwitter about the brilliantly executed SOTU moment in which Janet Norwood, the mother from Pflugerville who lost her son Byron in Iraq, embraced Safia Taleb al-Suhail, the women from Iraqi and victim of the Saddam regime, who had just voted in her country’s election. Even before...
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How Many W's Would You Give Me For An FDR?
Whoa. I got so distracted by the Iraqi elections, I almost completely forgot about Bush’s coronation. (I mean, inauguration.) (…Or maybe I was right the first time.) One of the reasons I think its important to track-back is because the Republican linguistic experts used the event to...
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Watch Your Back(drop)
In my last post, I was talking about how politicians — taking a cue from the sports and entertainment industries — have begun turning photo ops into personal and policy product placements. Among other techniques, the President has made broad and increasing use of labeled backdrops, particularly to market...
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