BAGnewsNotes

John and Cindy's 2000 Vote: The Matter Of The Children

There was an interesting moment in Thursday's interview with Cindy McCain on the TODAY Show, especially in light of the intense buzz surrounding whether the McCains actually voted for Bush in 2000.  (This, in addition to Arianna Huffington's psychological take-down of Mac's hyena-like denial in front of O'Reilly.)

Referring to negative campaigning, the TODAY Show's Ann Curry asked Cindy McCain:

"It's six months to go before the election.  Are you prepared for the next six months knowing that that's how it generally does go?"

If you watch the interview, McCain is mostly breezy, sometimes firm, but at this particular point, you can see the emotion in her eyes.  (The screen shot comes immediately after Curry says: "prepared for the next six months.")

McCain answered: "Well, I'm never ready for those kinds of things..." then added, "especially when it involves my children."

For a mother, given that the attacks involved her daughter, Bridget, it is not surprising she would answer the question that way.  However, if such feelings remain this live and close to the surface eight years later, could the sting be that separate and distinct from hard feelings toward Bush/Rove for perpetrating the attacks?

Following the interview, Curry told co-anchor Meredith Vieira she had asked McCain about charges she hadn't voted for Bush in 2000, and that McCain told here it wasn't true.  Cindy McCain's pain here, however, makes it that much harder to believe that the attacks and her 2000 vote could be that exclusive of one another.

TODAY interview with Cindy McCain (video - MSNBC)
Cindy McCain ‘shocked, appalled’ about Myanmar (TODAY - MSNBC)

(screen shot: TODAY Show, via msnbc.msn.com)

Low Stimulus

In an effort to literally get out in front on the stimulus rebate, Cheney poses with the Director of the Philadelphia Regional Financial Center in Philadelphia.  Between this shot, and the other White House pic of Cheney (sans glasses, seeming to scrutinize a stimulus check), the whole exercise feels really depressing.

Because the economic picture -- including galloping food and gasoline prices, mortgage foreclosures, and the like -- doesn't typically lend itself to vivid news imagery, it's something we're all feeling now without much chance to address it here.  This cavernous warehouse of rebate checks, however, seems to do a good job of conceptualizing the gloom.

Besides the endless monotony of battleship grey (sort of a monochromatic reminder of how much money the war on terror has siphoned off), all that empty shelving, and floor space without a worker in sight, seems to not just telegraph fewer shoppers in stores, but a lot fewer workers.

(image: David Bohrer/White House.  Philadelphia. May 8, 2008. whitehouse.gov)

Iraq Civil War #10 - Day 44

Like this image posted back on March 27th (two days after Maliki declared war on the al-Sadr and the Mahdi), what lends poignancy to a situation we have otherwise grown numb to are pictures that are this elemental.

In the latest evolution of the Shiite civil war, American forces -- with the support of troops from the U.S.-installed, pro-Iranian government  -- have so traumatized Sadr City that a mass exodus would surely take place (similar to the previous migration out of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities) if only the people, now trapped and starving, could get out.

This woman's hands gripping onto a truck while waiting for food supplies to be distributed not only powerfully reflect the circumstance in Sadr City, their expression and adornment offer an anguished and detailed personal portrait as well.

accompanying article: Aid Officials Urge Relief For Baghdad Slum (Reuters via NYT)
BNN Iraq Civil War thread
NYT Pictures of the Day, May 8 (nytimes.com)

(Photo: Petr David Josek/AP. May 2008. Sadr City. via nytimes.com)

The BAG Prepares For The Second Coming (Of Obama-Mania)

(click for full size)

Back in the cold of January, when Alan Chin was up in New Hampshire shooting for TheBAG, he and I had absolutely no clue whether, come fall, the Obama story -- still electrified at that moment by the post-Iowa buzz -- was going to play out more like this or this.

Fast forward two months, and Alan (having spent another overnight on the lip of the Ohio primary, developing film) sends me the shot above as part of a basket of pictures.  Of course, I dismissed it immediately.  "And what didn't you like about the Kennedy-esque one?" Alan asked the next morning from a roadside Bob's Big Boy somewhere, I think, between Columbus and Cleveland.  And in phrasing it that way, he pegged the source of my problem, knowing that, as dramatic an image as he had recorded, it in no way reflected how a struggling Team Obama had given up the pep rally in favor of the townhall.  (And so, this is the "more representative" pic I went with.)

But today, today.

Today, just 24 hours after the results from Indiana and North Carolina, at the moment at which the Democratic race apparently reached its tipping point, I saw as quick and dramatic a flip in the visual tone as I've ever seen before.  For the past few week, Obama has been largely portrayed in tandem with his controversial former pastor, or with not the friendliest looking white blue-collar workers, or standing alone on both the literal and metaphorical "other side of the tracks."  Looking at the images flying off the wire the past few hours, however, it seems suddenly like none of those other moments and picture were ever made.

So, before turning the focus to the return of Obama-mania and the visual media's tilt-on-the-dime purification, glorification and idolization of the man who just a few days ago was fighting the shadows, I felt (although it's hardly a digitally-appropriate description) like dusting off that Ohio image.

Our Man in Ohio (March 08 - Alan Chin on the campaign trail for BAGnewsNotes)
Our Man in New Hampshire (January 08 - Alan Chin on the campaign trail for BAGnewsNotes)

(image: ©Alan Chin. Westerville, Ohio, outside Columbus. March 2, 2008.  Used by permission)

Winning, Going Away?

The permanent campaign?
Never let 'em see you sweat?
Still carrying the white male vote?
I'm going to Disneyworld?
The Hillary Bubble?

This shot led yesterday's final NYT Indy/N.Carolina primary slide show.  It seemed even more "reflective"  this morning.

(h/t: Nathan)

Candidates Stump In Indiana And North Carolina (May 6, 2008 - NYT slideshow)

(image: Damon Winter/The New York Times.  May 6, 2005.  Indianapolis. nytimes.com)

Bill Ayers, The Flag, Steve Clemons, And Going Off The Deep End - Updated

Oh please, where does this all end?

Apparently, the hysterical, formerly extreme right-wing "flag attack" on Obama has now wormed itself right into the liberal blogosphere, as evidenced by this image -- and the knee-jerk reaction to it -- on The Washington Note.

(Sorry for the brief commercial, but this is a perfect example of why we all could use a little more skill when it comes to looking at political imagery.)

Leading his post today, titled "Trampling the Flag," Steve Clemons grabs a lead image from an on-line Chicago Magazine feature on Bill Ayers.  (I'll just insert, by the way, that the article and image lighting Steve's fire in the middle of this stretch of blistering condemnation of Obama, and anyone linked to him, has been sitting there since August of 2001.)

So, let's talk about the picture, both formally and symbolically.

Obama's Last Day

(Expand browser for full view)

I'm always wondering how much these primary eve slide shows are supposed to be predictive in some way.  Short of that, however, I'm also wondering what this says about race (and if the black guy got out safely).

Last Day of Campaigning in Indiana and North Carolina (NYT Slide Show)

(image: Doug Mills/NYT.  Evansville, IN. nytimes.com)

All The Obama-Wright That Can Be Fit Into Print (Or Digital, And Now, Broadcast)

Adam Nagourney a TV star?  I don't think so.

I just noticed, though, that the NYT has teamed up with MSNBC on a political broadcast called Primary Edition.  What primarily stood out in today's edition, however, is that, eight days after the NYT starting milking the Jeremiah Wright story for all its color (and, on the eve of the Indiana/N.Carolina primaries), they are still working this linkage.

Choreographed with this split-screen, talking head Contessa Brewer begins today's report as follows:

So we start this hour with the front page of the NYT, and a new NYT poll indicates that Barack Obama has survived the controversy over Reverend Wright ... for now.  But this could be an issue that follows him all the way through the general election.

(She might have added: "If the NYT has anything to say about it.")

Notice the screen caption, by the way.  (No, not the reference to tornados, although that analogy might also fit somehow.)  I'm referring to the remarkable implication that Wright, juxtaposed with Obama, somehow (still) qualifies for front page treatment.

screen shot from Primary Edition May 5, 2008 (NYT Video via nytimes.com)

Does this guy have balls, or what: Roberts declares `Wright - free zone' for Obama interview (AP)

Before The Heartbreak

I was struck by this image of RFK in VF's new article and slide show, The Heartbreak Campaign.

At first, I thought my reaction involved a fairly straight one-to-one connection between Bobby sleeping with his dog on the floor of this plane, and that fateful image burned into my memory from the floor of the Ambassador Hotel.

On reflection, though, I think there is more to it than that.  Nobody symbolized the politics of hope more than RFK (if the term even bears credibility anymore).  And then, this photo is so syrupy innocent (sleeping on the airplane floor!  curled up with his dog! THE AMERICAN WAY!), it makes the vibe of the current Presidential race feel about as dank as that ashtray compartment.

The Heartbreak Campaign slide show (Vanity Fair)
Article/book excerpt: The Last Good Campaign (Vanity Fair)

(image: Bill Eppridge)

Blowing Up The Surge

When it's all said and done (sometime within the next hundred years), the most redundant image of the Iraq occupation could well turn out to be the razed car carcass.  At this point, however, what could possibly distinguish one more crippled hulk from another?

In the former case (besides the fact it's an ambulance that took the hit), the method of infliction is worth noting.  The roof of the car is caved in because it was damaged from the air by one of three U.S. Hellfire missiles.  The specific view, however, is actually peripheral to the main target which Iraqis identify as a mosque and the American military described as a “criminal element command and control center.”

What everybody does agree on, however, is that the building next-door was a hospital, which made it that much more convenient to treat the twenty-eight people injured, including a group of kids who were collecting cans to salvage.