What makes the VietVets.org ad so powerful is not just the visual impact, but the perfect blending of rhetorical and somatic metaphor -- hands and hands. As the cadence builds, you keep waiting for the "other hand." And when you get it, you don't expect the singular, offsetting comparison...
Continue ReadingSo, is Hizonnah running or isn't he? And, if so, what does the camera have to say about it?
Continue ReadingIf you look past Hillary's Oprah-style presentation, the interviews with supporters, and the applause scenes, however, you get a more complex picture. Studying the faces in the audience, what you have are Iowans looking and listening hard, with not a small degree of skepticism.
Continue ReadingI got an interesting email from a reader yesterday about Saturday's anti-war demonstrations. He said he was looking around the main news sites for photos of the size of the protests, but mostly all he could find were pics of celebrities.
Continue ReadingI offer you a "verbal snapshot" of George Bush's seven State of the Union addresses. (Each of the images above is a thumbnail which you can open, full size, in a new window. First though, you might try expanding your browser window to get a larger view. Balancing legibility...
Continue ReadingI'm not going to back off my campaign against this visual apartheid system enforced by the mainstream media in its coverage of the presidential race. If this blog has any influence at all -- and from what I understand, more bees throughout the hive are keeping tabs here --...
Continue ReadingWith the Stateside surge in surge talk, and Mr. Rove's success in embedding that term into the political lexicon (although Central Command lacks the men, resources, local alliances or even the basic foothold to implement anything close to what the strategy implies), some of the pictures -- if you...
Continue ReadingBecause I do have a category called "Blogging Focus," and because The BAG -- with its unique visual pathway into political commentary -- does not always link enough to, or draw the consistent reciprocal attention of "the big boys" (with some noteworthy exceptions), I thought we might turn our...
Continue ReadingAlthough reaffirming his war commitment, having just laid the groundwork to escalate it, the President contradicts his own message by choosing -- for the first time in years -- not to spotlight an American soldier (or, specifically, the family of a fallen soldier) during the SOTU.
Continue ReadingGiven the MSM's quadrennial confiscation of America's electoral process, The BAG offers you the first axiomatic shot of Campaign '08.
Continue ReadingAlthough Hilary's PR people, I'm sure, are thrilled with this video, I think Hillary's presentation is fairly stilted. On the surface, the "living room" concept must seem like the great leap forward, but so did narrating one's every move the day people brought home the first video cameras. Creativity...
Continue Readinghttp://time-blog.com/middle_east/2007/01/poster_politics.html If you've been following The BAG for a while, you'll remember the series I come back to from time to time looking at elections (particularly in the Iraq and the Middle East) through political and election posters. TIME's fairly new Middle East blog has a nice post about...
Continue ReadingI find the cover of the new Atlantic quite important, signifying a new shift (and, deterioration) in the perception of George Bush.
Continue ReadingCould somebody please tell me what Condi's latest Middle East diplomacy trip show debacle cost the tax payers (if only in dollars)? It's gracious of the NYT to refer to the Secretary's Middle East strategy in terms of a "loose agenda." Otherwise, they might have tried: non-existent or unintelligible.
Continue ReadingAnd today, it's time for a spot quiz.
Continue ReadingThe BAG's Winter '07 coverage wouldn't be complete without paying visual respects to the season that wasn't. If you've been reading about the globe's warmest December on record, or the fact New York City had its first December without snow since the 1890's, it seems the visual media is just...
Continue ReadingU.S. and Iraqis Are Wrangling Over War Plans http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/15/world/middleeast/15baghdad.html?ex=1326517200&en=96772c3fd092411f&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss Here's the problem when you have an imaginary political solution, in the name of Mr. Bush's "New Way Forward," imposed from the top down. In Iraq, where NYT report John Burns tries to separate the wheat from the chaff, there...
Continue ReadingLike the NYT piece just before, Dana Milbank filtered this photo of Obama on vacation through another swift boat-style argument to convert Aquaman here, into a girlie man.
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