Leader of the free world sees the way ahead

by Simon 4 Replies latest social humour

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  Simon

  "Erm ... Mr President Sir"

  "Not now aide, I'm in the middle muddle of a photo oppurtunity"
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  Joyzabel

  ROTFLMAO!!!

  Love the end caps on the binoculars but more important is the book upside down!!!!!

  HOW EMBARRASSING That's our Bush

  j2bf
• 

  SpannerintheWorks

  Even worse, the book is called "America!"

  Spanner
• 

  SYN

  Everybody makes mistakes, even Bush, so give the man a break, but you gotta admit, that is VERY funny!
• 

  detective

  You can find more info on these two photos by checking out the urban legend debunking site:

  http://www.snopes.com/index.html

  On the picture of Bush with binoculars (also featured on snopes was Clinton who experienced a similiar problem with lens caps):

  Origins: The photographs above have been a favorite item of political humor on web sites since last year, and now they've been joined by a similar picture representing the opposite end of the spectrum:

  Real? Manipulated? We can't say for sure, but either way these photographs demonstrate nothing beyond the trivial. As much as we may enjoy poking fun at our politicians, they aren't so clueless that they don't know binoculars don't work with the lens caps in place, or would stand confusedly staring through capped binoculars at total blackness for several minutes at a time. The Presidents in these pictures might be looking through night-vision scopes (which would be capped but still usable during daylight), or they may have been handed capped binoculars which they briefly raised their eyes before realizing the caps were still in place while a photographer or two managed to snap pictures during those brief instances.

  On the book picture:

  Origins: This may be a funny picture, but even if were real, it would still be just a funny picture. If it weren't a manipulated image, it could have come about because an aide handed the book to President Bush for a quick schoolroom photo opportunity, the President didn't immediately notice it was upside-down because he was looking at the student to his right, and a photographer managed to snap a picture before the error was corrected. It might also be possible (but hard to determine from this image) that the books President Bush and the student were holding had removable dust jacket-type covers, but the cover of the President's copy had been put on backwards, so it looked as if he were holding the book upside-down even though he really wasn't.

  The photo does show some tell-tale signs of digital editing, so the real explanation is that someone took an existing picture and flipped the image of the book in President Bush's hands. Note, for example, that the picture on the back of the book in the student's hands and the one on the back of the book President Bush is holding are the reverse of each other, a dead giveaway that the photo was manipulated:
  Incidentally, the book shown in this photograph is America: A Patriotic Primer, by Lynne Cheney, wife of Vice-President Dick Cheney. The photo to the above right, a picture of Mrs. Cheney with the children of naval personnel, is the one that appears on the back cover of the book. (Note the correct orientation: the child holding an American flag should appear on the left-hand side of the photo, not the right-hand side as shown in the doctored image of the book President Bush is holding.)