I’m not in the business of weighing in on debates about just where media is headed. Really, the only thing I’d put money on is that old and new media outlets will keep going under for a while now before a new set of workable business models emerge. This juxtaposition in my Reader feed amused me, though:
Something has always bothered me about Tim Geithner, and I finally put my finger on it: he was bad guy Eric in Billy Madison!:
Gaddafi, addressing the Arab League Summit.
(h/t Selkabizzle)
I can see making this mistake once, but five times on one page?
(h/t TNR)
Well I’m the only one here:
Joe Biden taunts a Special Olympian for having less hip eyewear (I assume). Photogaffetastic!
(h/t Crapweasel)
Those are valuable fucking things you got there, mam
(h/t CWB)
Oh, Blago, what will we do without you? The Dapper Don of Illinois politcs has been ousted. After convicting him, the senators passed a bill barring him from any future public office in the state, just for fun. If this bill was actually necessary, Illinois is beyond hope. Also, Wikipedia tells me that every state constitution forbids bills of attainder, and Illinois is a state, so I think we’ve got a syllogism on our hands. In any event, Blago did not go gently into that good night, delivering a passionate and deeply psychotic defense to lawmakers:
I suspect - and hope - we have not seen the last of Rod Blagojevich.
Looking through the archives, I don’t think I posted this at the time. I can’t imagine why not:
I miss her so much already.
This is a spectacularly unflattering photo. It’s not just that Bush is flinching; that seems pretty reasonable when you know what is going on: someone just through a shoe at Bush’s head and is preparing to throw another one. The big problem is the contrast: Maliki looks downright placid as he throws up a hand to protect the cowering Bush. But look at the incident in real time:
He actually handled the incident pretty well! There’s nothing remarkable about it, but he ducked a shoe thrown very hard at his face and kept standing where he was, looking more or less calm. That shoe would most likely have knocked him out cold, and it would in any case be uncharitable to blame a visiting American politician for being jumpy about objects hurled at him whilst in Iraq. All in all, this was a more than respectable reaction.
Which highlights just how amazing photogaffe-free politicians are. Barack Obama won the primary and general elections against the two most photogaffe-prone figures amongst the highest echelon of U.S. national politics. But if there were a fleet of cameramen documenting your every moment, the results would probably be as horrific - or worse- than any Hillary or McCain photo you’ve seen. Because sometimes in life, Iraqi reporters throw shoes at our heads, and rare is the man who can look dignified throughout such an experience. McCain and Hillary aren’t exceptional in this regard, Obama is. It just seems like they photograph poorly because most highly successful politicians to some extent share Obama’s talent for avoiding photogaffes: you won’t see a lot of terrible pictures of Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan.
Now, I can almost hear the Hillary faithful and the hard right screaming that Obama only looks better because the press loves him and chooses photos accordingly. Nonsense. Certainly a photographer with the president-elect in his sights and enought access could come up with some pictures that were less flattering than what we’re used to seeing, but the man has photos taken of him all day, and some of the photographers work for Fox. And one doesn’t have to spend all that much time scouring the archives to target, say, Hillary. There are horrible photos of her from just about every thoroughly documented event she’s ever attended, just as their are terrible photos of you on every roll of film your friends have taken.
Not looking extremely stupid for a few fractions of a second many, many times a day, is an underappreciated and rare skill, but one that is very useful for a politician. W, God bless him, doesn’t have it.
(h/t JSelk/CWeasel)
From TNR, a photogaffe that is almost too good to be believed:
This is one of the worst pictures of Obama I’ve ever seen. Perhaps that’s just a coincidence, but he doesn’t look all that comfortable to me. Blago, meanwhile, has that grin on his face in almost every picture ever taken of him. I suspect that is a contributing factor to his 4% approval rating (before today!).
"500 Grand says you couldn't do any better"
Not a shirt you want circulating in your cell block.
I sweat quite a lot myself, but damn, Hitch:
It’s almost too hideous to be a photogaffe:
Quite a neat trick for a Republican these days:
Despite a protest or two, John Boehner was just voted majority leader again. Good luck to the guys and gals in the house. This will be a tough time for some real opportunities to show leadership.
Phottogaffe aside, I’m pretty sure this would have provoked more than a protest or two. Perhaps Ms. Lopez was reporting what would have happened in a world in which Sarah Palin - whom “Thomas Jefferson would be proud to meet” - had been at the top of the ticket.
We haven’t said anything about David Frum’s departure from NR here, since we have been pretty consistently clear about what we think of that outfit. Along with the departure of Christopher Buckley and Kathleen Parker, this move has prompted a lot of rumbling about the demise of the National Review.
Sure, it’s getting worse, but this seems a bit arbitrary to me. Taken as a whole, it had long since lost any claim to seriousness, but even now, there are still a few people who are intelligent and honest, even if they tend to scare me (think Jim Manzi). So it’s getting a little worse, but, like, whatever.
It does seem to me though, that there will be more and more of a shift from dishonest partisans to people like K-Lo who are actually this stupid, which could undermine the value of NR to the Republican Party. If you nominate Sarah Palin to be your VP candidate, it’s good to have people in the media who will lie and say they think she is a terrific choice. It’s much less good to have idiots who actually believe that pushing her 2012 candidacy, as she is an unelectable joke.
