InfoD-Cafe: Photoshop tricks: I was wrong

[Mick McAllister]

>Reasonable people might ask why the podium matters so why anyone would 
>object to a bit of "artistic license." But one might counter by asking 
>why, if it really doesn't matter, someone went to a lot of trouble to 
>change the footage.
I have to agree that the two incidents represent a huge range of 
reprehensibility. The Kerry ad was a lie intended to harm him. Removing of 
the podium was a bit of visual rhetoric, I think, though technically also a 
"lie."

The duplicity in it is that it implies that Bush trusted our troops enough 
that he would eschew the regulation bulletproof podium. Podiums and 
lecterns, after all, have evolved from speech tools to protection against 
assassins. So using a podium sends the message that Bush is not even safe 
surrounded by "his" troops. Bad message. Or that he doesn't trust "his" 
troops. Another bad message, associated more with tinhorn dictators than 
mighty leaders of the free world.

M