Glimpses of a Leader, Through Chosen Eyes (all photos staged)

[kskiska]

By ELISABETH BUMILLER

WASHINGTON, July 12 — The official White House photograph of President Bush, splashed across the front pages of the nation's newspapers last summer, showed him striding vigorously on a Camp David trail, just hours after he had been sedated for a colonoscopy. It was a flattering portrait of a fit chief executive, ready to take up the nation's business once again.

And no wonder, say photojournalists: the president had selected and approved the photograph's release to the news media.

Eric Draper, the chief White House photographer and the only photographer allowed at Camp David that weekend, had shown Mr. Bush the small image of the picture in the back of his digital camera. "I said, `What do you think about this?"' Mr. Draper recalled in an interview in his West Wing basement office last week. "And he said, `O.K., that's good.' "

(snip)

"This administration, in times of crisis, has really put out its own image from its own employees," said Chuck Kennedy, a Knight Ridder photographer who has covered the White House since Ronald Reagan's last term. "I don't know that any one of these handouts is a grand fabrication or a distortion of what's going on, but we're only getting one voice."

more…
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/13/national/13IMAG.html?ex=1058673600&en=8ec515f7c81b4fe6&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

[MoonAndSun]

1. WOW, the articles about bush* are starting to be more critical,

when the media turns on a politician, they do it en masse. It is a packherd mentality.

[chasqui]

3. It's OK

This is something that Bush has finally earned on his own.

[newyawker99]

6. Hi chasqui!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[DUreader]

2. Bush* Admin. priorities on display in the New Whore Times?

Hath Hell Done Froze Over?

[Judi Lynn]

4. This is a terrific article

Found something perplexing:

(snip) The Oval Office photograph taken by Mr. Draper the morning after the war against Iraq commenced showed the president, Vice President Dick Cheney and George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, engaged in what looked like a tense discussion. Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff, looked on.

White House officials say that allowing a group of news photographers in for that scene would have compromised security and changed the character of the meeting. "Have you ever been in the Oval Office when the photographers come running in?" Mr. Fleischer said. "Literally, it's a thundering herd. That picture could not have taken place." (snip)

So the concessions other presidents have made, as a courtesy to the public, like letting the citizenry feel included in their terms by having a tiny bit of access through photographs are forbidden.

I think it's wildly likely that if they let outside photographers hang around, those guys would know in a jiffy that the _pResident isn't really capable of handling the job we didn't elect him to perform.

Those members of the media just might be the living witnesses of a witless man only going through some of the motions.

[kskiska]

5. Or was it just a reenactment…

for the benefit of the photographers?

[dfong63]

7. maybe it shouldn't have taken place

"Have you ever been in the Oval Office when the photographers come running in?" Mr. Fleischer said. "Literally, it's a thundering herd. That picture could not have taken place."

maybe it should not have taken place, if its purpose was pure propaganda.