White not going to be fake anymoreFollow

Which is exactly why they got ahead of the story with the BS bit about changing the policy regarding staged photos after speeches. That story is designed to mask this one. Now, when someone mentions a staged photo, everyone will think of the speech photos and not think it's a big deal.


A lot of big stories start as small ones on the fringe sites and comments Joph. Of course, a lot of BS is there too, but that doesn't automatically mean anything. Edward's love child was ignored by the main stream media (downplayed some might say) until after it didn't affect the Dems politically. Reverend Wright was blatantly ignored by the mainstream media for 6-8 months, existing only on fringe sites as well. Even after youtube videos surfaced it still took about 2-3 months for the mainstream media to cover the story. It was only until it was simply impossible to ignore it anymore that they covered it.


So I'm not so confident in the whole "If channel 9 news isn't covering it, it must not be true!" position. In this case, it's not even a matter of speculation. We know that the photo was handed out by the white house to the media. We know that the media overwhelmingly reported said photo as showing them reacting directly to events occurring during the operation itself. We now know that they were blacked out during the operation itself, so at best they were sitting there waiting for news after the fact. The only real question is to what degree the incorrect captions and stories were the media embellishing on their own (and I'm fully aware that they do this), and how much of it came from the white house itself.

THE HORROR. How dare they give the media outlets a dramatic picture to go along with a dramatic story! Sure, its a silly practice that has been going on for, well, forever. I'm pretty sure I can find threads where you go out of your way to defend staged pictures. The real story is that its all of a sudden a travesty. Yeah, it has to be a lie to be a conspiracy theory. Let's pretend that Birthers don't exist.

If that was true, then why bother going to the press with the "non-story" announcement about changing the policy of re-enacting speeches for the purpose of photo ops? On the one hand, you have something which you acknowledge is a non-story about something almost no one cares about, and on the other you have a story about a staged photo in the situation room bouncing around the fringe media. And you honestly don't see how one might just be related to the other?

It's called spin.



So because all stories on the fringe aren't true, then all of them must not be true? Logicfail much?

I'll ask again: Why bother with changing the policy if there wasn't some problem? I'll quote the section from the OP again:



If that was the reason, then shouldn't we be looking at the more significant issue regarding faked/staged photos? You're actually arguing that they decided to change the policy because they were concerned about people raising a stink about the post-speech photo shoots, but not at all because of concern over the rising stink related to the situation room photo? That seems... bizarre. It's like showing up at the hospital with a severed hand and a splinter and claiming that you decided to go to the hospital out of concern about the splinter.

I think most people's automatic reaction would be to assume it was really about the severed hand but for some reason you wanted to downplay the whole thing. Which is precisely what's going on here.

If there was any mistake, it was their assumption that anything they did wouldn't cause a stink by people who go out of their way to demonize based purely on party lines.

Saturday is his day off, not Sunday.

This is funny coming off of 8 straight years of Bush bashing.

And it still fails to address the very real problem with taking a photo in the situation room, passing it out to the media, and telling them to run it as a photo of the administration officials taking part in a black ops mission when in fact they were most likely just waiting for pizza at the time the photo was taken.

Holy Hell! Your ability to just blindly ignore facts is astounding:

This was linked earlier in the thread and then quoted by me in this thread (both on page 3)

The very first fucking paragraph:




Are you illiterate? WTF? And yes, the photo in question is directly next to that first paragraph.


Here's the full caption information as well:




Now, the caption doesn't say anything about watching and listening to the firefight, but the story does. So someone is making stuff up, aren't they? I mean, if AP made that whole "watching and listening to the firefight" up, then that's some serious journalistic license, isn't it? I'm not discounting the possibility, but then perhaps we should just direct you over to the "Liberal Media Bias" thread. It's one or the other, isn't it?

Edited, May 18th 2011 4:39pm by gbaji

Or an error in a developing news story. But then you can't cry over the liberal media and concoct conspiracy theories.

From the story itself:
So Brennan didn't offer exact details but the writer used used other sources to determine that SEALs had cameras for real time viewing and erroneously assumed they were used during the events inside the mansion. Not completely out of line since they apparently did transmit aside from the 25 minute blackout period but still erroneous.

Again, this isn't as sexy as a conspiracy theory with staged photos and having to set up denials-that-aren't-denials using the pretext of post-speech photo sessions and doesn't allow one to cry big tears about liberal media bias but... well, reality usually isn't as sexy as we'd like for it to be.

Edited, May 18th 2011 6:52pm by Jophiel

Yup. Do we call that "side-pedaling"?



Yes, it does. Blatantly. I mean, you're basically handing me victory on a silver platter here.


Oh, and Joph? That's a hell of a lot of BS you have to go through to try to justify that paragraph.

Edited, May 18th 2011 5:51pm by gbaji

Gallup is one of many polls aggregated by RCP.

Why exactly should we cater policy to conspiracy theorists? You do realize that they're going to believe the conspiracy no matter how much evidence there is to the contrary.



Edited, May 18th 2011 8:14pm by bsphil

And just for kicks and giggles, here's a transcript of Brennans answers to the media about the OBL op.

It's pretty clear from reading that why the media might think that they were watching video of the actual action. He certainly goes out of his way to suggest this, and then somewhat coyly avoids answering direct questions about whether they "heard the gunshots". It's hard to read that and not get the impression that he's nodding and winking at the press saying essentially "yeah, we've got the best system you can imagine in there, but we can't tell you about it. Honest!".

I mean, there's this:



and this:



The bolded sections certainly suggest strongly that those in the room could "see" the helicopter. And he absolutely didn't try too hard to correct the reporters about their obvious assumption that they could see and hear the firefight, even though he was asked directly... twice. But hey! I'm sure it was just an innocent error on the part of some news agencies. Nothing to see here!

Edited, May 18th 2011 6:28pm by gbaji

Clearly you're not aware of how conservatives assume stories are written. You forgot the secret direct cable line to all MSM outlets to feed copies of news stories generated by Obama, who then cackles to himself in the oval office wearing a monocle and holding a goblet of cognac referring to the sheeple that are all playing into his hands. Don't forget the Cuban cigar - that's where the communism enters his bloodstream!

Average day at the White House, conservatives imagine.




Edited, May 18th 2011 8:35pm by bsphil

Given that he said the blackout period started when they entered the compound....


Yeah. Have fun screaming at shadows :D