Say “witch hunt!”
You know that photo of Obama and others watching the raid that got Osama bin Laden?
This one?
Trump is jealous of it. His people tried to fake one up for him but they didn’t try very hard.
The chief official White House photographer for former Presidents Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama suggested the Trump administration was posing for Saturday’s stern-faced Situation Room picture in the wake of a U.S. military raid that resulted in the death of a major ISIS figurehead.
Pete Souza, the former director of the White House Photography Office, called the timestamp of the Situation Room picture into question Sunday morning. Souza inferred that it’s very unlikely President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and several top administration officials and generals were actively monitoring the raid on ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s compound when the photograph was taken Saturday in Washington.
They mean implied, not inferred, but anyway, let’s see it.
Oh no no, I’m sure that’s not posed at all, everyone looks completely natural and unaware of the camera and just intent on…on…on that random bunch of wires not attached to anything, and on looking into the lens.
“The raid, as reported, took place at 3:30PM Washington time. The photo, as shown in the camera IPTC data, was taken at ’17:05:24,'” Souza remarked on Twitter Sunday. He was replying to a tweet from White House Director of Social Media and Assistant to the President, Dan Scavino Jr.
Well, sure, because Trump was playing golf at 3:30, but the photo taken at 5:05 is totally real.
The al-Baghdadi Situation Room photo Saturday showed Trump; Pence; National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien; Secretary of Defense Mark Esper; Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff U.S. Army General Mark A. Milley; and Brig. Gen. Marcus Evans, Deputy Director for Special Operations on the Joint Staff. All six men are shown in stiff, postured stances, giving squinted glares toward the camera.
The Trump photo is far more symmetrical and organized than the Obama White House Situation Room picture taken during the bin Laden compound raid in 2011.
That’s because Trump’s people have discipline while Obama’s people were all slobs! It’s not at all because the Trump picture was posed.
And then Trump went to the World Series and this happened.
Trying the link again. https://mobile.twitter.com/adamlongotv/status/1188623821877760005?ref_url=https%3a%2f%2fd-17428423122281191568.ampproject.net%2f1910161528000%2fframe.html
I love the detail of all the coloured computer cables scattered around like Christmas decorations. Someone who used to managed military intelligence IT pointed out how utterly ridiculous and embarrassing that is.
Guest I’d assumed the cables were there for people to plug their laptops into. Kind of makes sense.
The Bin Laden picture was totally convincing of serious responsible people – whatever you think of their politics – watching a significant event which could go wrong. Hilary Clinton especially, with her hand over her mouth. The Trump one looks posed. And it’s so stupid. No-one expects the President to view events carried out by special forces as they unfold – the Bin Laden thing was likely to be a one-off.
Also, what are the people supposed to be looking at?
Why aren’t they telling the person with the camera to get out from in front of the screen?
But the ethernet cables are the funniest part. Someone looked at the Obama photo and saw there were ethernet cables and thought “we’ve gots to get us some of those. And we’d better have MOAR than Obama had or Trump will go apeshit”.
They should have brought in the people who faked the moon landings.
I’m betting that one of them picked up a load of ethernet cables stopping by at a garage sale on the way in to the WH, and invited all and sundry to pick through them before the serious photo opportunity. What you see is what was left.
(I also bet Donald grabbed more than his fair share.),
Another contrast: Obama is sitting in the corner, in a low chair, slouching down, lower than anyone else, not trying to be the center rod attention.
Also what the hell is Pence looking at? The others at least have a reasonably-consistent eyeline.
Apologies for the unclosed tag earlier.
I still can’t get over the fact that a thing is very obviously happening in the Obama pic. Everyone is reacting differently. They all look stressed in different ways. For instance, Obama is hunched over looking worried. That guy with all the medals is relieving his stress by playing solitaire or looking at porn or whatever. Clinton has her hand over her mouth in what looks to me like concerned concentration.
The Trump version just proves how difficult it is to fake a photo like that, especially if you assume – as whoever perpetrated this obviously did – that everyone else is stupid. I’m guessing that it wasn’t Trump who handled the details because he isn’t sitting on half a dozen phonebooks to make him look taller than everyone else or bathed in golden light. He’d probably have added a flaming sword too, if it were up to him.
But to be fair, Trump has two medal guys – a green one and a blue one – whereas Obama only had a blue one, loser.
Seth,
Any time Pence is caught next to Trump, the look on his face is saying “When can I get out of here?” He has to be thinking that these four years count as purgatory.
At the back of the Bin Laden photo are the youngish guy and young woman. They look like junior staff – gofers maybe – who just happened to be on duty when this occurred, and are keeping at the back so as not to be in the way of the senior people. (That’s my interpretation anyway).
Also, what modern office has three handset phones on a conference room table? I can’t actually remember the last time I saw a phone in a meeting room. (When we want to do conference calls we do it off someone’s laptop or someone’s mobile, or someone pulls out a Jabra (our hip new toy).)
The AF officer in the middle of the Obama photo is the one guy actually doing something, which is why he is the center, sitting at the table He has the data feed, and would be reading off anything relevant to POTUS/VP/SoS, etc., including any authorizations required. Staffers are going in and out, and the brain trust is waiting nervously to see how the raid unfolds.
By contrast, in the Trump photo, no one is actually doing anything. The center is, logically enough, Trump, the sole reason for the photo taking place.
@guest – we have conference phones in the meeting rooms where I work. We may be a little conservative of course.
And Obama is sitting off to one side, almost in a corner, sort of scrunched down as though to say “Hey, don’t look at me. I’m not the important one here”. And when he gave his announcement, he gave most of the credit to the people who actually did the work.
He must be a loser. Right?
I know Pete Souza. He’s a genius at news photography, and yeah, I’ll take his word over the Soggy Cheeto’s, anyday.
It is interesting that the top photo is mostly white guys with one black guy and one female, and the bottom photos is…all white guys.
Freemage – ooh, you lucky. I got his huge book of Obama photos out of the library once, and did not regret it (though the contrast with the behind the scenes life of the current occupant made me sadder than I already was).
iknklast – and not just all white guys but all white guys IN COLLAR AND TIE and SITTING BOLT UPRIGHT and LOOKING INTO THE CAMERA and NONE OF THOSE LIBERAL COFFEE CUPS SITTING AROUND and THE PRESIDENT SITTING SQUARELY UNDER THE SEAL AS IS RIGHT AND PROPER and NO DRAWING OF A GORILLA ON THE SECRETARY OF STATE’S LAPTOP and IN FACT NO SECRETARY OF STATE PERIOD, JUST SOJERS AND GUYS WHO LOOK LIKE SOJERS.
There’s actually a second woman in the Obama photo.
Oh, yes, I see that second woman. She’s sort of peeking around the back, in a position one would expect someone to be in for a candid shot in that situation.
Trump would probably tell us that his photo is the best photo; it came straight out of central casting. It looks like a publicity photo, and he probably sees that as better, because everyone is controlled in the way they look, not all real and sloppy.
But the gorilla pic? I love it. The sort of thing that used to fall out of the notebooks of the artistic kids when they were supposed to be taking notes and were bored as hell in class.
I suspect that part of the issue is Trump’s desire to manage his image. There probably was no photographer in the room when this went down in the first place, because they wouldn’t have wanted any witnesses if it’d been a failure (and no, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Trump hisself was not there, either, because attention span of a tse-tse fly). Imagine if the Bin Laden operation had been a disaster–there would’ve been a journalist in the room, able to capture not just the fact of the failure, but the visual of the core Obama Administration members reacting in dismay. Letting Souza be there was a dedication to making sure the historical record was accurate.
Trump couldn’t risk that sort of thing, so they didn’t have anyone in there to witness any failure–meaning that when a success came along, they didn’t have the ability to actually show off a photo. So they faked it, because that’s what he does.