BAGnewsNotes

Since November (#6): Suspended Animation

One of the cleverest images documenting the mid-term election was this November 20th cover of The New Yorker.

Looking back, its clear the combination of Iraq and scandal led to the toppling of the Republican Congress. That's the White House in the background, however, not the Congress.  So, did the White House actually experience any mourning for the Congressional hit?  (Note the flag at half-mast.)  Or, is Bush/Cheney more like the Black Night in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, just lusting to fight, no matter how many limbs get lopped off?

Taking the image in the most literal terms, one might also consider the Iraq elephant is still up there, the rope loose and one foot still planted.

This eight day series, titled "Since November," looks at images that have caught The BAG's attention over the past four months. Many are inspired by the change in political landscape following the Democratic Congressional victory in November. In this stretch, I am taking some time off, leaving the site -- and the conversation -- in your hands.

(illustration: Mark Ulriksen. November 20, 2006.  The New Yorker)

The New Place To Be

 
(TIME vs. BAG: click for full effect)

The BAG readership often cites how America has no news magazines -- that the originals were grabbed up long ago at the corner of Hollywood and Kitsch.  At key points, however -- when the national attention span pauses to focus on one significant, and usually dramatic thing -- these cultural billboards still have their place and impact on the political narrative.

(Or a negative impact --when they turn a political earthquake into nothing.)

If you haven't seen it around the 'sphere, take a look at the cover TIME did after the Republican's stampeded in '94.  And, if you have seen it, look at it again.  In nine days, I haven't seen any stormin' donkeys, any steamrollers, any locomotives, have you?

Out of anger and solace, The BAG took a remedial crack at the TIME cover -- two cracks, in fact.  You can view the other version on the sister-post at Huffington.

Regarding this TIME-ly excuse for an election cover, by the way, Greg Sargent has an interesting critique (TIME Magazine's Cover Touts Victorious "Center" -- But Matching Story Doesn't Assert Anything Like That) of both the illustration and the lead article.  Regarding TIME's thesis, Greg says:

Dems didn't win simply because their candidates were moderates or centrists. They won because they had good candidates -- some of them moderate, and some of them quite liberal.  ...And again, nowhere in the piece does Klein describe the election as a victory for the center.

Regarding the visual, Sargent's take (which I find a quite plausible in a world where quality is Job 2 ... after the sacred maxim "Get There First") is that TIME created the cover before it actually knew the election results!

(illustration/Arthur Hochstein.  November 20, 2006.  Cover.  time.com)

Advice To Republicans

(Well, it's the end of a one very long and memorable roller-coaster ride in which, at its culmination, the political skies tore open, a brilliant bolt of lightening stuck (twice), and the House of Kitsch was swept away.  Through this stretch, of course, we've been blogging like crazy.  For an outfit that averages something like 1.012 posts per day, on Wednesday, we actually did three!  Considering all that, as well as the inordinate seriousness one typically encounters around here, indulge us while we loosen the reins.)

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In analyzing all the political analysis of 11/7, how could The BAG  fail to offer its own two cents of advise to the faded red party.  For inspiration, I turn to Tuesday night's single shining light in the elephantocracy -- a promotional genius who smelled something very, very bad in the air and who pre-determinated, well in advance, how to avoid losing his seat or feet.

The approach Arnold settled on exactly mirrors the recommendation I urge all war-torn, scandal-ridden Repubs to put into effect right now:

Join the party!

Giving You The Creeps

My dream, immediately following the election, was that I would never have to mention George Bush again.

...Then I woke up.

The thing is, if Bush thought he was showing badly last week, he'd better strap himself in.  Yeah, he built a tiny little buffer by offing Rumsfeld, and yeah, he and Rove are working frantically to appear calm while, at the same time, double-sealing every act and statement in the unfamiliar, distasteful and gushy lubricant of bipartisanship.

But, what I'm not sure he understands is that he's never going to be not seen again.

For both preview and example of what I'm talking about, consider the much discussed Vanity Fair article, Neo Culpa, that came out just before the election.  Almost every word of text has already been profusely cited in the 'sphere for the fact that several neocons, like rats leaping for life boats, unloaded on the Administration just before the roof caved in.

About the only aspect of the article I didn't see mentioned, in fact, were the photos by Annie Leibovitz.

Not until recently -- not until it was practically even money that the wheels might come off -- did the visual media even venture a less intimidated look at the Bush/Cheney, Cheney/Bush cabal.  And then, what we were mostly fed were images framing embarrassing moments (like Bush's note to Rice at the U.N. asking to use the bathroom), or pics that made Bush look goofy, the examples of which are too numerous to mention.

Like History

by Chris Maynard

Don Rumsfeld was both the youngest U.S. Secretary of Defense, and, thirty years later, the oldest.

Never having seen a tax dollar that didn't beg to be in the military budget, Rummy was even quicker to dodge responsibility than he was to take credit. Although he claimed to be deeply affected by military deaths in Iraq, he nonetheless used an automatic signature machine for about 1000 letters of condolence sent to casualties' next of kin.
                             
In October, three weeks before the midterm election, President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld stuck out their chins at the new U.S. Air Force Memorial in Virginia, approaching what the White House was hoping would be another cakewalk.

Even though this picture is less than a month old, it brings up that sense of unreality that always accompanies a file photo, as if storage on a computer server itself changes the facts of the image. Yet the facts themselves are never more than comparisons, little checks against our memories.

Given yesterday's election results, does the picture look more planned than before? Does it seem like they are actually looking at something, or just giving the cameras a right profile? Do the tough-guy squints reflect a care on our behalf? Or was it just overly bright in the autumn sunshine?

In October, we winced at shot after shot of graying guys in dark suits who had started wars for their own gain and blithely trashed the Constitution because they could.

Back then they were current events; suddenly they're looking a lot more like history.

(image:  Haraz N. Ghanbari/A.P.  U.S. Air Force Memorial dedication. Arlington, VA, October 14, 2006. Via Yahoo News)

Engendering Change

Textually as well as visually, Nancy Pelosi has taken an incredible amount of political and media abuse in her career, particularly over the past year or so.  She has been written-off for her "LIBERAL" voting record as well as her representation of moonbat "SAN FRANCISCO."  She has been criticized for her speaking style and for how she looks.  Overall, her treatment has mirrored the worst combination of gender and partisan politics.

With yesterday's Democratic landslide, there are dozens of new faces to focus on.  In the coming days, you'll see them all over The BAG, not just because of America's fundamental political and tonal shift, but also, because of the hastened start of the '08 Presidential race.

That said, last night was, as much as anybody's, Pelosi's night.

As I've mentioned before, I have issues with Nancy.  And, come Thursday, we can expect to see Dems pulling intensely in at least two directions, with centrists and liberals grabbing hard for the wheel.

For at least one full day though, I'm taking off my critical hat and just enjoying the picture.  We have struggled for such a long, long time. So give me the confetti.  Give me the little flags on the wooden handles.  Give me the hugs and the celebration shots, and as much patriotic wallpaper as you've got.

Like America's first woman Speaker of the House of Representatives in this buoyant image, I'm feeling the joy.

(image: Larry Downing/Reuters. Washington, November 7, 2006. Via YahooNews)

It's Called Release

Tuesday, November 6, 2006

Wednesday, November 7, 2006

Election Final: The Parting Shot

What happened this past five years to transform America into a spellbound container of paranoia and fear -- and to narcotize the public square into an endless loop of word pictures and catch phrases?

What happened was the poisonous "perfect storm" of Osama bin Laden, Cheney/Rumsfeld, and Karl Rove.

My take on last week's Bush/election cover was that TIME missed the point of their own photo-illustration.  The way I saw it, the image was not about Bush's isolation so much as his impending exit from the political stage. 

In its own way, the shot above is its companion.

This picture, taken in Texas this week, seems more than fitting on a day in which in the country -- in a potential rediscovery of the ballot box -- seems poised to, finally, cut and run from the political abuse of the Bush Administration and the cancerous decrepitude of the Republican's consumption of Washington.

If the destiny of this President is to look back on his tenure and remain profoundly clueless about who he was, what he did, and how anything and everything went down, almost the complete opposite can be said of Rove.  The campaign picture above -- on this occasion, and not by accident, a quintessential one -- emphasizes, close up, that what we mostly have to look at still is what Karl largely wants us to see. 

(image: Pablo Martinez Monsivais/A.P.  November 4, 2006.  Aurora, Colorado.  Via YahooNews)

The Election Trinket Formerly Known As Saddam

So we have the November surprise -- involving a quasi-kangaroo court dropping a death sentence on Saddam just 48 hours before the U.S. election.

My first reaction was to agree with Tim Grieve at Salon -- that the last last minute "hail Mary" (as suggested by this Sunday newswire photo) merely emphasizes the horrendous price we continue to pay for turning one man into a souvenir.

But then, in advance of Monday's press deadline, the on-line MSM editions were already lapping it up.  "Big boost for Maliki!" "Shiite Joy!"  "Major achievement for young democracy!"  Writing most of this post on Sunday, I fully expected -- as did the White House -- to find the dictator's mug above the fold in most of Monday's papers.

(It now being early, early Monday on the East Coast, I can see that Saddam soaked up all three stories atop the NYT, including the election piece -- and a four column pic.  WAPO, in sober contrast, gave it the far right column, but no picture.  Monday's LAT isn't on-line yet.)

Dems might insist it won't have an effect, but that's not how these things work.  From Rove's standpoint, he's looking for just a faint enough "Stay The Course" echo to tip a few Senate races (and, therefore, continued control of that chamber) toward the red.

The way Saddam has been exploited like a circus monkey (example 1, 2), I find the "trinket" shot clearly the day's best visual commentary.  Realistically though, here's what to look for in the MSM coverage:

Campaign Wrap-Up: The "Loathiness" Of The Long Distant Runners

by Chris Maynard and The BAG

For most mortals, possessed of a reasonable sense of shame, it's obvious when the time has come to step aside for a while, let the unruly passions quiet down and watch quietly from the sidelines. President Bush, unfortunately, seems to have been AWOL when shame was being passed out.

A quick trip across the country offers glimpses of Republicans desperately trying to stay alive after Tuesday. A few have welcomed the president as the shiny hood ornament of their campaigns; most others have decided to go it alone.

Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, left, was the only Republican Senator to vote against authorization of the Iraq war. His father was a popular governor, then senator.  Also, his state tends to treat U.S. Senate seats as lifetime appointments.  However, the sharp teleprompter edge lined up with his head and the "five seconds left" gesture well reflect an electorate about to dispense with hereditary niceties.