You know, I'm really beginning to suspect that the White House photographer corps secretly hates the Obama family.
Take this picture, for example: This is an event which, under any circumstances, should be a warm and caring event. And yet, when Samantha Appleton went through her photos to find the right one to upload to the official White House Flickr photostream, she went for a strangely cold Barack Obama, standing next to a nonplussed Michelle.
On its own, it might have been nothing, but I've seen a pretty steady stream of this kind of stuff coming from their Flickr feed over the past few months. A rather unflattering photo of the self-proclaimed new emperor. The befuddled looking Girl Scout reception. The nonchalant seat at the table. A barely-stifled yawn. Some downright juvenile curiosity. And a disembodied piece of insulting paternalism to top it all off.
For it to happen this many times is way outside of the realm of chance, isn't it?
Or could it be that I'm just reading too much into things?
As always, I'll leave it up to you to provide the last word. Don't be shy!
[ Flickr Link ]
President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama watch as a child lights the Hanukkah candles at a reception in the the White House, Dec. 16, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Samantha Appleton)
Tags: White House samantha appleton #NewsInFocus
The common thread of these screw ups is diversity, diversity, diversity - the girl scouts are tense because they are all strangers to each other, Obama's wife does not much like Jews and Jews therefore don't much like her, Obama at the economic briefing looks like a n!&&#% at a white man's club, similarly for the imperial Obama.I think the photographer is consciously trying to promulgate the diversity message, and is inadvertently promulgating the reality that racial and cultural diversity makes people uncomfortable.Obama is not in fact Afro American - he is descended on the dark skinned side not from the ancestors of American slaves, but from those who sold the ancestors of American slaves. I think the photographer deliberately selected a photo from the economic briefing that made him look Afro American, and thus look like a n!&&#% at a white man's club