Your Turn: No Body I Recognize

This is just getting surreal. In an artist’s wildest dreams is this the headlining photo. Well, gee the big grey box with the presidential seal is an easy place to start. Could any well-informed American possibly mistake who this photo is of–if not just for all the bullshiterry: the big lights, the weird staged feel, something in your gut just tells you this is george W. bush.
And look at those lights. They’re friggin’ shooting out of his hands like magic. Or perhaps i should say…”magic?” But really the exaggerated hand gesture tells you everything somehow. More of an exasperated gesture than any normal body language you or i would use to ever try and convey anything, unless you’re a disengenuous used car salesman, and even then, i’m a bit sorry for the analogy.
This weird photo points out the fact that our president is far beyond rational understanding. His iconography from a visual standpoint will be his insincerity, the contrast between his words and his actions. And a lot of the time, his words and his words a month or so later.
Speaking of how dumb at least half of the country is for ever falling for this guy, could this ever be a more dumbed-down image? Anyone else catch that wavelength?

The incredible shrinking bush.

Similar to the dissapearing Uncle Sam and Bush between his military buddies, we see an identity without content, a mature role without substance inside of it hiding behind the status and the power, but not knowing how to wield it. We are entering the end of the Wixard of Oz movie with Toto pulling the curtain away from the all powerful Oz. I suspect though that Oz had a lot more compassion and empathy…

Imagine you are not looking up at this image, but down. It appears as if Bush has been crushed under a gray concrete box with the Presidential seal on it, with only his hands waving uselessly.
From my mouth to God’s ear.

OT, but I just had a thought and nowhere but here to put it:
Bush is drunk with power, but we’ll have the hangover for the next decade.

The two lights on either side of the podium look extraterrestrial. They could stand for the bizarre parallel universe the Bush administration clearly inhabits. It’s a universe that exists in a dead, black unanchored space. The twin mikes in front of the president resemble inverted binoculars. This is a myopic and narcissistic administration, too selfish to be able to see beyond itself and its own immediate needs. Bush no doubt felt big and powerful when he gave the speech. This photo shows that the public saw something else.

No humanity, but intsead, towering symbols of power and darkness behind them. Oh, and two hands sucking up the only light in the jernt.

Look at the twin mikes and the little you can see of his head; doesn’t it look like a bear or a lion? It’s like some horror movie where the beast was inside him and now it’s knocked him down with a heavy box and escaped from his body.

The NYTimes used a similar photo some years ago on the front page.
Bush was at the podium, but his hands came over the top edge, and there was no sign of his head. The shot was taken during the daytime and outdoors.
It seemed brilliant at the time; in that light this photo seems derivative and a few years late.

Just felt like saying… how gratifying and motivating it is to get up on the left-coast and “catch the early returns” — even if it hasn’t been that long since turning in. Besides the mind expansion, the creativity and the amazing twist and turns are great fun — not to mention, pure fuel.

illegial alien surrenders
Cat in the Hat
don’t shoot
I beseech you brethen
look no French cuff links
I’ve got ten fingers
Larry Diamond goofing off
visual proof of slanted liberal media bias
hide or seek I’m still the chief
I’ve seen another light
meine 10 symbolic configurations mit gestalt in mind

jt apologizes to all the Larry Diamond’s but offers commendations to Larry Downing who took this photograph

Its not just that Bush is himself hidden. The POTUS seal takes the place of Bush’s face, just as Bush has repeatedly stood behind the office of the president. This tendency was always present although more subtle, such his use of post-9/11 popularity to force through a variety of retrograde domestic policies. Its current iteration is the much more obvious “its not illegal if the president does it” line of legal reasoning.
His hands barely extend away from the immobile box of the podium. Competence and ability are what is being critiqued in that element.
Remember all the “Bush with a halo”, “Bush as an angel”, “Bush as god”, “Bush as a preacher” photos early in the administration? Sure they were propagandistic cheerleading by a cowed press corps. But what godlike properties did those pictures associate with W? All seeing, all powerful, the prime mover. Bush was also a dynamic god striking forcefully into the hearts of unbelievers at home and abroad. This photo serves as almost a direct visual antonym. The “god” has become hidden, unable to even peek out from behind his own altar. He appears trapped and immobile, dependent on the tattered regalia and idols of his divinity (POTUS seal) in a vain attempt to squeeze devotion from an increasingly skeptical flock.

Please don’t “catapult” the lie that chimpy won in 2000 or 2004.

I think the photographer was making a personal statement without using words. “The President Has No Head.”

In 1998 this shot would be dubbed Monica-Cam™.
Here and now it is a stolen glimpse up from the prayer mat of the 31% (and trending lower).

As with the last post of Uncle Sam, it seems that we are getting documentary evidence of what a bunch of us have known all along — W is an empty shell.

Pay no attention to the man behind the podium….

Danger, Will Robinson, Danger, I’m being manipulated in my actions and speech by the evil Mr. Cheney . . . urrr. . . . Dr. Smith.

It’s the “Rapture!” He’s goin’ on up, into the ether!
Hallalujia!

Looks like he’s just tossed out some sort of incindiary devices from behind the cover of the podium… “bombs away you media-on-the-attack… I’ll make you wish it were the good ol’ days when you kept your mouths closed!”

itwasntme: “It appears as if Bush has been crushed under a gray concrete box with the Presidential seal on it, with only his hands waving uselessly.”
Get the shoes, Dorothy, get the ruby slippers!! They’re our ticket home to Kansas!!

The kleig lights are on the POTUS, and lo & behold, all that’s left is the presidential seal of office and hands outstretched in supplication.

This portrait joins the seemingly endless gallery of junior posing. As poseur-in-chief he is: cowboy (afraid of horses); man of the earth (environmental destroyer); good ol’ boy (as frat-ratfucker); uniter (for about 72 hours after 9-11); tough guy (“bring em on” from Kennybunkport, commander cod piece on the USS Lincoln (the irony is so thick I can hardly bear it);christian (while continuously spreading hate); continuous candidate (reading teleprompters in front of hand picked Dubya crowds); protector of the English language (Is they learnin?). What this image says to me is that junior is still running with $billions of our dollars, but he is slowing down, the weight of the office and glimpses of reality are beginning to crush him, the Hounds of Hell and the dead he is responsible for are about to catch up. Only his almost feminine little hands are left free to wave. To whom?

First the empty-suit faceless Uncle Sam, now the headless W. The little alien creature sitting on top of the box-o-POTUS, is wiggling his nose and telling us resistance is futile. Crunch. Crunch.

The most honest photograph of that blockhead ever!

Basically, it’s a cartoon screaming for a caption. I saw this and thought it was almost too obvious for the Bag to select, but I’m sure glad he did.
Is this the photo of the future of the presidency? A box with hand gestures. It sure fits Arnold.
We’ve become a headless nation riding wildly on a horse called ‘WarOnTerror’ continuously running in circles, trampling on the graves of the dead.

I caught one this big….

Are all posters here brilliant, or is it just my imagination? such great interpretations!

The prez office is simply too big for this pathetic, spoilt little prep school cheerleader — even the podium overshadows him; a flea of a man who is too minute for history. His proper place is indeed in the total absence of his presence. I’m surprised we even see his arms…

Of course!!! I get it! President SpongeBob Squarepants!

ACME finally delivers the 10 ton weight to Wile E. Coyote.

The image reminds me of a shot in 2001: A Space Odyssey: the HAL-controlled space pod, with its lights blazing in the blackness of space and its robotic arms outstretched, coming to kill astronaut Frank Poole.

Larry Downing took several shots with slightly different composition, but the same basic feel of a box which has swallowed the pontificator or else crushed him under heavy weight. Pathetic.
This one is good, too:
http://derenegade.blogspot.com/2006/06/i-dont-believe-in-focus-groups.html
If you just see outspread fingers, you might suppose that there is some energy or passion to the message, but that peeping head looks like a child fearing punishment, or a king fearing revolution from the hordes below.
Props are supposed to aid a message, not dwarf the speaker into insignificance.
The most powerful man in the world is just an empty box with a return label. If we recycle him, can we get our nickle back?

He paid a lot more than a nickel to get that title, hauksdottir!

ummabdulla I’m sure hauksdottir knows but I was interested, Center for Responsive Politics:
The presidential race alone, fueled by massive spending by President Bush, Sen. John Kerry, the political parties and a host of advocacy groups spending millions on ads and voter mobilization, will cost an unprecedented $1.2 billion or more, according to the Center’s estimates.
http://www.opensecrets.org/pressreleases/2004/04spending.asp
1)”In America any boy may become President..”
2)It was alleged that during one of Stevenson’s presidential campaigns, a supporter told him that he was sure to “get the vote of every thinking man” in America, to which Stevenson is said to have replied, “Thank you, but I need a majority to win.” Adlai Stevenson.(deceased)-Wikipedia.
How would this renowned US statesman theorically respond to why then is ‘W’s’ in the WH ?
You may enjoy Johnny Carsons take on,
“Democracy means that anyone can grow up to be president, and anyone who doesn’t grow up can be vice president.”