At the American Enterprise blog, Henrik Temp explores the semiotics of AttackWatch:
Unlike FightTheSmears, which was clean-cut and contained mostly whites and blues, AttackWatch is cluttered and presented in stark red and black colors. It contains creepy black-and-white photographs of the president’s “attackers” (read: political opponents) alongside such lines as “Rick Perry’s Massive Jobs Lie.” Weirdly, it includes close-up photographs of these “attackers’” lips. The overall effect is to make the new site look like some sort of conspiracy website.
Another major difference, less immediately noticeable, is the absence of a quote by Obama that featured prominently on FightTheSmears:
“What you won’t hear from this campaign or this party is the kind of politics that uses religion as a wedge, and patriotism as a bludgeon—that sees our opponents not as competitors to challenge, but enemies to demonize.” – Barack Obama, June 3, 2008
The fact that this quote, or something similar, is lacking from AttackWatch reveals that Obama has officially abandoned the politics of hope and has embraced the politics of… well, just politics.
And as Zombie points out at the Tatler via nifty Photoshop, it’s yet another reminder that…
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