(The Oval Office, December 29, 2009. Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)
Posted on 01/02/2010 6:08:15 AM PST by kristinn
Richard Nixon had advertising executive H.R. Haldeman; Ronald Reagan had image master Mike Deaver; Barack Obama has public relations guru David Axelrod.
All three men understood the power of visuals in communicating the strengths of the presidents they served on the campaign trail and in the office of the presidency.
I don’t know where David Axelrod has been since President Obama began his ten-day Christmas vacation in Hawaii, but it is safe to say he is goofing off as much as his boss.
(The Oval Office, December 29, 2009. Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)
(AP Photo by Chris Carlson, December 31, 2009)
(Official White House photo by Pete Souza, December 31, 2009)
Since the Christmas Day terror attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on approach to Detroit, Axelrod and Team Obama have failed in their most basic duty of reassuring the American public that the president is on the job. It took four days, from when the attack occurred Friday morning Hawaii time to Monday afternoon Washington time, for Obama to be seen ‘on the job’ when he made a statement before the media about the terror attack.
Over that time span, the administration failed to update the White House web site with any mention of the attack.
In Obama’s absence, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano were sent out on the Sunday talk shows (except for Fox) to spin the administration line that “the system worked.”
That PR strategy was mocked across the boards, forcing the administration to put Obama in front of the cameras for the first time since he went on vacation.
Obama’s presentation Monday was emotionless in delivery and casual in its presentation. Wearing an open collar shirt, Obama looked like a man who showed up at a formal club without the required attire and was forced to don the club jacket hanging in the closet to get in.
Obama also seemed painfully uncomfortable without his TelePrompter security blanket. He struggled with the text at times and reflexively swiveled his head from side-to-side even as he stared down at the the printed remarks laid out on the podium before him.
That Obama went golfing right after he told the American people he “will not rest until we find all who were involved and hold them accountable” undermined whatever seriousness of purpose the administration was trying to convey.
When internal reviews by the administration started to show that the government had enough information to stop the terror attack before it happened but failed to act, Obama was hustled back before the cameras the next day to get in front of the bad news–standard PR disaster strategy. However, Obama was hustled in front of the cameras so fast the satellite feeds weren’t ready so the cable networks went live with only a ghostly audio address by a ticked-off sounding Obama. Video of the speech was shown later in the day but the damage was done. Team Obama was flailing.
Worse still was the failure of Team Obama to distribute still photos of Obama taking meetings and briefings on the terror attack.
The White House told the media that Obama was getting briefed several times a day and was participating in meetings and conference calls in between gym workouts, golf, tennis and beach outings, picnicking, snorkeling, fine dining and taking over a movie theater.
However, it was only yesterday–a full week since the terror attack–that the administration released a photo of a hard(ly)-working Obama on the telephone. But the photo is not featured on the White House Web site, instead it was posted to the White House’s Flickr account.
What is on the White House Web site’s front page for the third day in a row is the White House ‘photo of the day’ that features an empty Oval Office save for a cleaning woman running a vacuum in front of the president’s vacated desk. A more telling image could not be presented to the public of an absent leader, yet that is the message Team Obama has conveyed to the world for the past three days.
It is a time-honored public relations technique to release photos of the president taking meetings and otherwise appearing to be focused on the nation’s business while on vacation or away from the White House when a crisis strikes. While Team Obama focused on keeping the prying eyes of media cameramen out of sight of Obama for most of his vacation activities, they failed to provide a countering image of Obama at work behind the scenes.
Yesterday, in addition to releasing the one photo of Obama at work, Team Obama allowed the media to photograph Obama at his movie outing and golf game.
The photos of Obama on the golf course show him playing with a passion that was sorely lacking in his initial speech to the nation about the Christmas Day terror attack.
David Axelrod used public imagery to create an air of inevitability of an Obama presidency months before the election. He created the aura of a co-presidency between Obama and President George W. Bush in the two months between Obama’s election and inauguration.
The whereabouts of Axelrod and his magic touch are unknown. But in their absence Obama, who has been living like an aloof king at his $4000 per night $8.9 million Hawaiian vacation estate, is looking more and more like an emperor with no clothes.
The optics of this are not pretty.
They cannot protect... The Image of The Beast
Think the covering for Obama is fairly apparent to most. Especially considering the economic situation.
His handlers must see what is happening. Why don't they stop it?
Is that Janet whatshername? Janet promoted to the Oval office?)
We probably shouldn’t overlook the possibility of plain old incompetence.
Gads. Have you seen Michelle lately? She’s in no position to tell anyone they look ridiculous!
They live in their own private little world with no problems and only hear how wonderful, smart and beautiful they are by the people around them.
Wish I could be a fly on the wall when they found out they’ve been naked all this time.
I always get a kick out of THE ACT Axelrod puts on when the cameras start rolling. He should get an Academy Award for Best Performance in the category of "Duping the Citizenry." Hey, Axelrod might even get a Golden Globe for faking his wide-eyed "deer in the headlights" look---posing as a political innocent. Like he's trying to reassure a wary citizenry that he's actually "harmless."
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FOR YOUR REFERENCE: The Ohaha/Axelrod/Incompetano cabal looked "kindly" on terrorism---but the cabal leaned hard on what they termed “rightwing extremism.”
On April 7, DHS' Office of Intelligence and Analysis sent out an alert to US L/E. It identified “rightwing extremists” as a danger and defined “rightwing extremists” in a footnote.
EXCERPT * (U) Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.
DHS said that the report was not an attempt to squash First Amendment Rights for conservatives----only "hate groups"---- but, there was no attempt to exempt anyone from their broad generalizations.
Incompetano's report paints EVERY ASPECT OF CONSERVATISM as "suspect."
===============================================
Fox's Judge Andrew Napolitano sounded the alarm----he reported the 12-page DHS document is an "excerpt" from a larger, more comprehensive, attack on "right-wingers."
The "excerpt" DHS sent to L/E was NOT supposed to be seen by the media---- and had specific instructions printed on it cautioning L/E NOT to show it to the media. Judge Nap said any attempts by the government to "chill" the speech of the citiznery is blatantly unconstitutional and violates the First Amendment. Judge Nap said we should all be very alarmed.
NOTE: The report was later withdrawn.
Yeah right. Obama is set for life financially. The Presidency guarantees it along with a place in history and eternal celebritydom. His "historic" Presidency will feed into his huge ego and messianic personality. The idea that he would be happy as a community organizer rather than transforming this country in his image doesn't pass the laugh test.
Makes sense, now.
Was he even talking to anyone in #3?
I imagine his team just telling him to have a seat, hold the phone and don his serious face for a moment while they snap some photos.
They wrote down the order for him. No teleprompters at Island Snow, I guess.
President Barack Obama meets with National Security Staff chief of staff Denis McDonough about updates concerning the attempted terrorist attack of an airliner on Christmas Day. This briefing occurred Dec. 29, 2009, in Kailua, Hawaii. The President has received updates throughout his vacation since the incident. (Official White House photo by Pete Souza)
This picture speaks volumes to me. Over sized Polo shirt unbuttoned, hands up in the air, look of frustration
The man is clearly over his head.
Narcissist over their heads are extremely dangerous personalities. They tend to strike out at their perceived enemies, unfortunately we are Obama enemies. We stand in his way to complete his Marxist agenda.
I'm sure the reason what he took so long to address the Christmas day attack was he just wished it went away. After all he IS on vacation
If all this information wasn’t so scary, it would be funny. These pictures, boys and girls, are those of the President of The United States, the leader of the free world! He’s clearly in a job far above his intellegence and understanding. I truly fear for us all.
What????? No bowling?
Would love to see who swims for him when he is snorkeling! I heard that he can't swim?
This was a good article. The part of this that is bothering me is the “clothes” thing. I’m not of the generation that wore a suit to Church every Sunday. Heck, I wear casual clothes now to work rather than the suit I wore ten years ago.
But for Obama, he’s always dressed way too casual. Regardless of whether he’s on vacation or at some function. It tells me he either doesn’t care about the “little things” or his value system is so “anti-establishment” that he refuses to conform to prior US society and dress code for a President.
We may be a more casual society, but we don’t want out President to be such.
“draft root beer” (from the sign above) wasn’t good enough for him.
My take is it took so long because they had to sober him up first.
“Wearing an open collar shirt, Obama looked like a man who showed up at a formal club without the required attire and was forced to don the club jacket hanging in the closet to get in.
Obama also seemed painfully uncomfortable without his TelePrompter security blanket. He struggled with the text at times and reflexively swiveled his head from side-to-side even as he stared down at the the printed remarks laid out on the podium before him.
That Obama went golfing right after he told the American people he “will not rest until we find all who were involved and hold them accountable” undermined whatever seriousness of purpose the administration was trying to convey.”
Oh, this is wicked good stuff.
When the going gets tough, the tough go golfing!
Maybe Axelrod followed the safari trail to Kenya, the trail laid by Comrade Rahm-bo last December. Now there’s a guy who knows how to keep his vacation a secret.
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