Big up, Pete Souza, who got this shot of Pres. Obama shooting a rainbow from his hand as he boarded the plane back from Jamaica yesterday. I have not seen Sforzian mise-en-scene that tight since Karl Rove tried to put George Bush’s head on Mt Rushmore.
[Which, like so many things from that era, turns out to have been not so slam dunk after all. The image that circulated at the time, which I’m not finding right off, had GWB’s profile lined right up. But Google Image results now for that speech show a wide range of camera angles that miss or avoid the setup. Aesthetic resistance would have been more interesting at the time. Of course Souza’s not just any hack, he’s the White House hack, so he wouldn’t miss.]
What’s not shown in the photo will no doubt be added, the way people started sticking Hitler’s and Sarah Palin’s heads alongside Bush’s. The White House that trolled Netanyahu’s scary bomb poster in their infographic for the Iran nuclear talks had to know that anti-gay people people would be riled up by Obama shooting his rainbow laser everywhere.
But the callous calumny of this twitter ad still caught me by surprise.
President Obama Shoots a Rainbow From His Hand in Jamaica [pete souza via jezebel thx @magdasawon]
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the making of, by greg allen