Alien-nation

Please excuse the detour from front page news as ... I'm currently knee-deep in putting together my presentation for the NetRoots Nation "Don't Think of Violence" panel and I wanted to share this image I just turned up.

It comes from a May 14th post on the ChicagoTrib blog ripping Obama for throwing on the flag pin when convenient.  (If you read the whole chicken scratch, by the way, notice the mea culpa at the end in response to reader vitriol that the blog can't seem to leave the pin issue alone.)

For the purposes of The BAG, however, what I'm interested in (which the aptly named "Swamp" blog offers no apologies for) is the super-sized photo (if you choose to click on it).  Besides honing in on the pin (and what, no snark about the red-white-and-blue tie it's married to?), the pic offers a smirky sort of grin (as if the expression actually had some direct connection to the lapel issue).  But the really winning feature here, in combo with the goggles, are those quirky-weird earplugs, making the otherwise thoroughly American candidate look like an alien.  ...An extraterrestrial one.

(By the way, I also love the shop floor shot they picked out.)

So, back to real time tomorrow.

Obama's magically reappearing flag pin (5/15/08 - The Swamp)

(image: more bad form -- no attribution)