Was Today Obama’s Bunnysuit Moment?
It was during the summer of 2004 that John Kerry had his infamous unforced error, when he made an interstellar violation of the “politicians wear silly hats at their own risk,” and had himself photographed wearing a cleanroom “bunny suit” while visiting NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The resulting images produced arguably the most memorable gaffe of the 2004 presidential election, that year’s equivalent of his predecessor being photographed in an Army tank.
Today, Reuters rejects the 2008-era halo photos of Obama for something a bit more defining of his character, in a photo that’s already going viral:
Ace dubs it “The Photo of the Year,” and adds the perfect caption to it:
“I am new enough on the national political scene
that I serve as a blank screen on which
people of vastly different political stripes
project their own views.”
– Barack H. Obama, The Audacity of Hope
There’s a caption contest for the above photo at the Tatler; feel free to add your own captions in the comments below as well.
There’s no *there* there. (Thank you, Ms. Stein.)
And if I’m elected I promise to have the most transparent administration in American history!
All Hail the Teleprompter of the United States.
We need Nick Gillespie to do another riff on UPS’s “whiteboard” commercials using that pic.
“Read My Lips”
President Obama displays every original thought he’s ever had.
America’s first blank president.
Our Leader Barack Obama welcomes our new Teleprompter Overlords.
The cloak of imbecility!
The TOTUS (Teleprompter Of The United States) gets its revenge!
I’ve long said ‘bumbling boob’. But now, blockhead seems more fitting.
The bunnysuit photo was silly and kind of funny, but what made it a gaff was how Kerry responded to it.
The Teleprompter President, however, is iconic.
The photographic press corps decisionmakers have gone from messianic halos to empty headed human teleprompter in just 4 years.
Does anyone else hear the ice cracking?
No caption, just take a marker and draw a smiley-face on the blank white square.
“Romper, bomper, stomper boo. Tell me, tell me, tell me, do. Magic Mirror, tell me today, have all my friends had fun at play? I can see Harry, and Nancy. I can see Hugo and Jeremiah…”
“A year from now, I think people are going to see that we’re starting to make some progress,” Obama says. “If I don’t have this done in three years, then there’s going to be a one-term proposition.”
ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD!
OT. Just curious, but what is that thing? Is that actually what a teleprompter looks like? (I honestly don’t know.) If I had to guess from my limited experience as a photographer, I’d say it looks like a card one might use to calibrate the white balance of the video cameras.
Reuters identifies it as a prompter in their caption. “A teleprompter obscures U.S. President Barack Obama as he speaks during a campaign event at Capital University in Cleveland, Ohio August 21, 2012. Obama is on a two-day campaign trip to Ohio, Nevada and New York.”