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Warmth and Ice

By Boquisucio on September 13, 2011 | | Comments (15)
Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.
It is better to be of a lowly spirit with the poor than to divide the spoil with the proud.
Proverbs 16:18–19

Presidential Styles: Ground Zero, Sunday September 11th, 2011.

Boq

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15 Comments

 
By John of Argghhh! on September 13, 2011 2:18 PM
I know I'm just a squish, but I've seen people pray like that in charismatic churches, and the receiving line photo is another example of gotcha (whether intentional or not) photography.

They're a canvas for us to project our own feelings about the people involved.

More revealing would be a video.

I had my picture in the paper enough during my year as president of my Rotary club to know that the single instant of a photograph can be damning or enobling - but in fact are neither.

 
By Joe in N Calif on September 13, 2011 3:48 PM
The photo starting this thread, I think, is fairly indicitive of their personalities.  Can any of us really picture Obama giving anyone a hug like that?  And with the expression of pain and concern on his face?

The photo that Miss Ladybug submitted for our consideration is more problematic.  He could have been drawing a breath and clearing his mind before bowing his head in prayer.  I've done that pose in church before chanting the prokeimenon and Epistle.
 
By John of Argghhh! on September 13, 2011 3:55 PM
Heh.  I.am.not.a.hugger.  Ask SWWBO.  Certainly, were I in former President Bush's shoes, I'd have stood and delivered.  But you can ask any Denizennes who've met me in person, I'm not a bear-hugger, regardless of the fact I look like and am grumpy like a bear.
   
By John (Not The Armorer) on September 13, 2011 5:54 PM
These reconfirm everything I thought I knew about these two men, and how they feel about our country and their fellow citizens.

Yeah, there is a chance they just happened to pick photos that glorified one guy and showed the other looking like a jerk.   And, there is a chance that gold farting unicorns will land on my roof this Christmas.

I weep for our country and what has been done to it since January 21, 2009.
 
By Skip on September 13, 2011 9:19 PM
Sorta like when W and Laura quietly visited the Fort Hood wounded the next day.
 
By Mike47 on September 13, 2011 10:03 PM
Photos are simply instantaneous images that record a moment in time, they do not tell the story of the person.  We have an abundance of information available to us, however, that validates the suggestion that each of these photos conveys about the characterof the subjects.  In my view, there is no comparison.  One is genuinely compasionate, the other smug and aloof.  The photo rings true that mirrors the known character of the individual.
 
By htom on September 13, 2011 10:18 PM
Some people are huggers (me) and some aren't (Spice), for example. I didn't used to be, and there are still individuals and circumstances where I usually don't. I think Bush is genuine when he hugs but that's a risky judgment to make. Good people come in both flavors, as do bad ones.  It may be that Obama was conversing with someone hostile, and Bush was grabbed by a hugger; there's no way to tell. But the photo catches how I feel about each man.
 
By Quartermaster on September 14, 2011 6:48 AM
Bush has nothing to gain at this point. So why be insincere?

Has Obama ever been sincere about anything?

John, you grumpy? Surely not.
 
By htom on September 14, 2011 12:07 PM
"The Magpie and the Grandfather"  -- sorry, Magpies.
 
By LittleRed1 on September 14, 2011 2:04 PM
 I would be more inclined to give the current POTUS the benefit of the doubt on photographs and receiving lines if I had not seen so many other photos of him with his chin up or greeting people stiffly. Granted, it could be because (like me) he's not a touchy-feely-huggy person. But all those photos of the chin-up posture suggest either a rather large and cold ego, or major problems with bifocal contact lenses repeatedly put in upside down.
 
By Gumpy on September 14, 2011 4:49 PM
 QM, There is nothing spontaneous about a politician, in office or out. You write, "Bush has nothing to gain at this point. So why be insincere?" Before we answer your question, you continue, "Has Obama ever been sincere about anything?"

Now let's try to answer your questions. First of all, we have no context or flow of events as they happened, before,during and after that split second in time of that photograph. Your comment starts with an assumption and an assertion. Then, you ask a very open-ended question. I not a fan of either man. But as I look at both men and their actions, as portrayed in that photograph in an interesting light. Both men are busy doing different things, but for the same motive, to re-write their legacy or history.
 
 
By Justthisguy on September 15, 2011 5:23 AM
I, too, am not a hugger. When some woman tried to hug me at the exchange of the Peace in church, I rebuffed her, explaining that there are machines for that. (Grandin squeezebox)

I believe the Major has actually been in the same room with W., and talked to him, and might be qualified to judge the sincerity and honesty of W's actions in that pic.
 
By Sabre22 on September 15, 2011 8:28 PM
What bothered me most about this was the current first lady pushing her way between the current and former president to get to center stage when they first walked up to the 9/11 monument .