The Press

Another Point About The Atlantic and its Photo of McCain

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Most discussion so far has centered on the photographer. The Atlantic‘s editor says she blindsided him by tacitly going out of her way to make McCain look bad.

But The Atlantic nevertheless used one of Greenberg’s photos on its cover. It may be the least bad of the photos but it’s still, I think, an unflattering portrait. It is harshly lit and makes McCain look older and uglier than he is. The editor calls it respectful, but I don’t think that’s plausible unless you ignore the flattering portraits of Obama that are everywhere. Why not make McCain look better? They could have bought a better photo from Getty. They weren’t obliged to use Greenberg’s work. (If you are going to make a respectful portrait of an older man or a middle-aged woman, you don’t use harsh, direct light that casts shadows and accentuates skin flaws. Look at the diffuse light in the photo of Greenberg on this page. That’s the kind of light she should have used on McCain. The Atlantic‘s staff know this stuff.)

It looks to me like the magazine wanted to denigrate McCain in a way that was subtle enough to be deniable.

UPDATE: Neptunus Lex posts The Atlantic‘s Obama and McCain covers side by side.

It’s Called Replacement Pricing, D*mmit!

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This really chaps my hide.

I’m watching news stories about hurricane Ike and the subsequent rise in gas prices in parts of the country far distant from the storms. Reporters and politicians mumbled confusedly about how prices could be going up already.

I’ll say it one more time for those who can’t be bothered to actually ask someone who owns a gas station. Gas stations set prices for the gas they sell today based on the wholesale price of the gas they will have to buy to replace it. Get it? The price you pay for a gallon today is the cost of the gallon the station will have buy to replace the one you just bought.  

Gas stations sell gas at or near cost, so if they did not use replacement pricing any sudden spike in gas prices would shut them down and you couldn’t get any gas. I simply do not know why our public and private talking heads cannot understand and communicate this simple fact.  

[update (9.13.2008.9:55am): More on gas pricing via Instapundit]

Quote of the Day

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From commenter “OldSalt” in this discussion at Belmont Club:

One of the major irritants I have about 9/11 is the defacto blackout on all newsreel coverage that day by the MSM. It’s a crime. American’s need to see the result of the failure of deterrence, of the failure of their government to adequately protect them by developing an adequate military, and by projecting power forward to any location that doubts American resolve (e.g. Georgia, for one example, Venezuela for a second example). All the “military power” in the world is useless and wasted if those holding the reigns have insufficient resolve or courage to deploy it, and deploy it sufficiently to “sell it” to the world.
 
Americans need to see the results of true American failure. They need to see American’s just normal and “ordinary” as themselves making the extra-ordinary decision forced upon them, i.e. to jump to their deaths from 100+ stories to avoid the suffering of burning to death. That was the choice that our politicians left them, when they failed to do their job. (I hold the Clinton Administration and their hold-overs, and the then-Democrat Senate for failing to approve nominations 9 months after the election, primarily responsible. However, there is certainly enough blame to go around, and to cover 20 years of “pretending” by both parties.)
 
I wish to GOD to see one of the networks grow gonads and put the entire 9/11 day of media coverage on the air. My God, the men going to war today weren’t even teenagers in some cases, and they deserve to know the full context of why the are going to war! However, the liberal MSM knows that the factual media coverage immediately begs the question of “why did it happen?”, “who could or should have prevented it?”, and truthful answers to those questions would be certain to impact the “future political viability” of some of the MSM “journalists” favorite politicians. And so, the blackout continues, even on the so-called “right wing” Fox. Not even profit moves their decisions; it’s an absolute blackout.

Doing the Dirty Work, As Predicted

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The MSM has openly joined one side of this election.

They have openly chosen to do the dirty work to protect their anointed candidate, His Holiness Messiah Barack I.

I said that they would mobilize to destroy Gov. Palin.

This piece shows that the MSM is doing the opposition research that the Obama campaign — that sole demonstration of Sen. Obama’s executive competence — should have done months ago, when it was clear to anyone paying attention that Gov. Palin was a VP prospect. this radio interview gives a flavor of the “circus” going on in Wasilla, Alaska right now. Very much worth listening to.

This is the stuff that opposition researchers usually do. I would expect the Obama campaign and the DNC to go after the personal records of Palin’s family and friends like this, but the media? Did they go after Barack Obama this thoroughly on personal history?

Or even better — remember Geraldine Ferraro? She was treated like a princess. Why didn’t the news media swarm into her neighborhood digging hard to find out about her husband’s mob connections? Why was Ms. Ferraro not treated as an enemy combatant? Easy. She was a liberal Democrat. She fit the MSM’s narrative about what a woman politician looks like, what she thinks and says. Anyone who defies that stereotype is a threat that has to be destroyed.

May they all get frostbite in Alaska.

Lipstick on a Pig — D’oh!

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Just when we had finished chuckling over “my Muslim faith” J. Danforth Obama sets off the Quayle-O-Meter again.

Seems like a day cannot pass without the leaden-tongued messiah failing the Quayle test.

He’s gaffe-o-riffic!

That clattering and banging you hear is the MSM flinging themselves bodily in front of their darling, trying to change the subject.

Thought experiment: Imagine Obama had a female VP and John McCain had said this. What would the reaction have been from the MSM? Not too hard to imagine, is it?

If McCain and his team are smart, and they have been lately, they will say nothing about this, or just laugh it off. Barack has disdain for anyone who dares to stand in the way of Divine Destiny. This arrogance is very unattractive. And it speaks for itself. Loudly.

UPDATE: So they made an ad out of it. Maybe it is good, if it gets under the skin of some undecided voters. I notice even in a five second spot Barack says “uh”. He is not a good speaker unless reading from a script.

UPDATE 2: Heh:

∅bama has made a statement about pigs in lipstick that seems to insult Sarah Palin. In fact it seems to have insulted a lot of women.
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If it was unintentional – ∅bama is a stupid politician.
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If it was intentional – ∅bama is a stupid politician.

OK. OK. Let’s not get cocky. Obama is human and makes mistakes, and will no doubt land some heavy blows before this is over — however it comes out. But he does not seem to have a good “gut” when things are not going totally his way, or when his opponent goes off of his pre-programmed script.