Presidents State of the Union address

FirstInLine

This is what the President meant to say last year in his address.

http://homepage.mac.com/webmasterkai/kaicurry/gwbush/stateofthe.html

Yerusalyim

No one can verify that picture is real...

Claim: Photographs show Presidents Clinton and Bush peering through binoculars with the lens caps still in place.

Status: Undetermined.

Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2001]

The picture on the left is of Bill Clinton. The picture on the right is of George W. Bush.

Both pictures were taken at the Korean DMZ. What is at issue is that one of the two didn't have enough sense to remove the lens caps from the binoculars before the photo opportunity.

Perhaps one of them was more interested in posing and too clueless to ask why everything was black, while the other was simply interested in seeing.

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:

Whether real or manipulated, 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. Hardly anyone among us hasn't accidentally raised a capped pair of binoculars to his eyes for a few moments before realizing the problem; the difference is that most of us don't have a crowd of photographers hanging around us all day long just waiting to snap such a picture of the moment. Also, there are reasons why binoculars (especially types used by the military) shown in a photograph might appear to be capped when they really aren't: the lenses could be coated with a non-reflective material to cut down on glare and prevent gleams of light from reflecting off the lens and revealing one's position to the enemy, or the binoculars could be NVD (night vision devices) which also work in daylight (provided they have caps with small holes in place to block out most of the light).

In these particular cases, a close-up examination of the photograph of President Clinton reveals blurriness around the putative lens caps indicative of digital manipulation:

And another photograph of President Bush taken from the same sequence as the one above demonstrates that even if his binoculars did initially have their lens caps in place, they weren't there for long:

Yerusalyim

We all know what an honest broker MOVEON.Org(asmic sputterings) is.

FirstInLine

I find it interesting that you bring up the issue of honesty in response to the video link of the President's fear mongering lies.

ThiChi

It cracks me up what some here try to do, day after day, post after post; these unwarranted attacks on this great President.

The antidote? TRUTH

FirstInLine

SELFWRAPPEDINFLAG,

The fear mongering lies the President told to sell his case for STARTING a war.

ThiChi,

these unwarranted attacks

He is a liar, a corporate WHORE, and war monger just for starters

on this great President.

Washington was a great President. Kennedy was a great President. FDR was a great President. Not many presidents sucked but greatness is also exceptional. Andrew Johnson sucked and Herbert Hoover sucked. GW Bush is in the ranks of AJ and HH not JFK or FDR.

Yerusalyim

Firstinline..you're full of insults, but no proof of your accusations that Bush is NOT a great president...nor do you offer viable solutions for todays challenges....which is because you belong to the HATE BUSH crowd.

Presidents State of the Union address

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