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Originally posted by reaverfan:
I take it Rush and Faux are raging about this, right? What a non-issue, even for them.

It's 2013. People take pics. Get over it.

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Originally posted by AURaptor:

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Originally posted by reaverfan:
I take it Rush and Faux are raging about this, right? What a non-issue, even for them.

It's 2013. People take pics. Get over it.

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Then why are the msm covering it, in such a dither?

I knew this is how the locals here would react .

What if W had done this ? Oh, he's there, and he didn't.

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Bush took an instagram with Bono. At the same event.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/president-obama-poses-funeral
-selfie-article-1.1543188#ixzz2n5oJmYv0

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Originally posted by AURaptor:
That's not W taking a selfie.

Swing & miss.

ETA- W posted it, or had it posted, so tacky on him as well.


@ Niki - who are you to judge W's art? How is his work remotely relevant to this matter?

It isn't.

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Originally posted by Storymark:
So, apparently the issue is with who holds the camera.

Prez holds camera (and is Obama) for private pic = BAD.

Prez (named Bush)has someone else take pic and post to instagram = No problemo.

Yeah, no psychotic double standard there...


If only Obama had given them unwelcome massages - then rappy'd be defending it.... right??

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Originally posted by Storymark:
So, apparently the issue is with who holds the camera.

Prez holds camera (and is Obama) for private pic = BAD.

Prez (named Bush)has someone else take pic and post to instagram = No problemo.

Yeah, no psychotic double standard there...


If only Obama had given them unwelcome massages - then rappy'd be defending it.... right??



"Goram it kid, let's frak this thing and go home! Engage!"

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Originally posted by AURaptor:


Google or BING " Obama selfie " , and you'll find my finger prints NO WHERE in the top hits.

Go for it. I double dog dare ya.

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Originally posted by BIGDAMNNOBODY:

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Originally posted by Storymark:
So, apparently the issue is with who holds the camera.

Prez holds camera (and is Obama) for private pic = BAD.

Prez (named Bush)has someone else take pic and post to instagram = No problemo.

Yeah, no psychotic double standard there...


If only Obama had given them unwelcome massages - then rappy'd be defending it.... right??

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Are you caring now?

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Originally posted by Storymark:

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Originally posted by AURaptor:


Google or BING " Obama selfie " , and you'll find my finger prints NO WHERE in the top hits.

Go for it. I double dog dare ya.

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What the flying fuck does that have to do with anything??

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Originally posted by Niki2:

Truly asinine, the microscopic scrutiny; truly pathetic, Rap's determination to insist it's somehow…what, newsworthy????

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As to Bush's "self-portraits", I think they're the epitome of classlessness for an ex-President…naked paintings of himself in the shower and tub; can you imagine what Rap and his buddies would be making out of it if Obama had done such a thing? It's to laugh…!

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Originally posted by AURaptor:

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Originally posted by Storymark:

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Originally posted by AURaptor:


Google or BING " Obama selfie " , and you'll find my finger prints NO WHERE in the top hits.

Go for it. I double dog dare ya.

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What the flying fuck does that have to do with anything??

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Not too bright, are ya ?

Naw. But we already knew that.

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There are many ways to remember President Barack Obama's appearance at South Africa's memorial for Nelson Mandela.

Some may remember Obama as Mandela's spiritual son, our president riding on his own soaring rhetoric at that stadium, wrapping himself in Mandela's mantle, dreaming of the father of the new South Africa.

And others will seize on Obama shaking hands with the executioner of Cuba, our president bowing to Raul Castro just as he once bowed to the lords of the Chicago Democratic Machine before beginning his climb.

But those images — Obama riding on his magic rhetorical carpet, reaching for dreams of Mandela, or his clasping of the right hand of Fidel Castro's demonic brother — are about politics.

But there's another image from the memorial that defines Obama. It has nothing to do with ideology.

A news photographer captured the president sitting with the prime ministers of Great Britain and Denmark. He has a cellphone in his hand. The three of them are grinning.

First lady Michelle Obama sits off to the side, somber, dignified, as the world remembers Mandela. Yet next to her like some goofy adolescent who hasn't yet been taught how to behave properly at a memorial service — her husband — is snapping a memorial to himself.

President Selfie.

That's what he's being called now, and it blew up on the Twitterverse. It's not the most compelling photojournalism in history. But it is clear, and as pointed as a pin.

Obama and Denmark's Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt extend their arms, hands on the cellphone, to take the self-portrait. British PM David Cameron leans in. They're as bubbly as school kids ordering a happy meal.

Why would a president take a selfie at a memorial for Mandela? Because it wasn't about Mandela.

It was about Barack.

And isn't it always about Barack?

Earlier, Obama sauntered through the crowd, shaking hands, waving, welcoming the love bath they gave him. He wasn't mourning as much as he was campaigning for adoration, a man determined to receive his due.

And then came the presidential selfie.

It fits into a pattern, of almost uncontrollable presidential selfieism.

A few days ago, when Mandela passed away at 95, Obama's media managers tweeted a photograph. You'd think he'd tweet a photograph of Mandela. But it wasn't of Mandela.

It was of Obama in Mandela's former prison cell, the president having gone to the prison because he couldn't get that photo op he wanted with the ailing South African during Obama's $100 million African vacation.

Obama as Mandela.

And then there was Obama as Rosa Parks.

To commemorate Parks, who 58 years ago this month defied racists who wanted black people to sit in the back of the bus, Obama released another tweet.

Not of Rosa Parks. But of Obama, sitting on the bus by himself, Obama Rosa.

"In a single moment 58 years ago today, Rosa Parks helped change this country," said the presidential tweet.

Yet there was Obama on the bus alone. It's all about Barack.

His social media managers should be sent to Guantanamo for feeding this electronic cult of personality.

There are no Obama selfies from his earlier life in Chicago, the pre-messianic Obama, the man who would later promise to hold back the oceans and heal the planet with a wave of his lips.

I'd have loved a selfie of Obama and his real estate fairy, Tony Rezko, as they stood on the lawn in front of Obama's dream house in the Kenwood neighborhood. That was the home that Rezko helped him get, in a deal that the president confessed was a "boneheaded" move.

Just think of what he might have tweeted at the time, there on the lawn with Tony, wearing khaki shorts, polo shirts and Sox gear:

"The Tony Rezko I know realized I really wanted this house. And he was right!"

And what about tweeted pix of Obama voting "present" all those times in the Illinois Senate, or one of Obama on bended knee before then-Senate President Emil Jones, asking to be made a U.S. senator.

Or selfies with former Gov. Rod Blagojevich or former Mayor Rich Daley or Boss Mike Madigan.

Ah, such tweets, such tweets. They'd be worth the price. Sadly, the Twitterverse back then was nothing like the one today.

Besides, Twitter deals in only 140 characters, and Obama's speech at the Mandela memorial was a tad longer.

It dripped with peace, as Obama told the world that Mandela's death should prompt self-reflection. He said he often asks himself: "How well have I applied his (Mandela's) lessons in my own life?"

"We too, must act on behalf of peace. ... The questions we face today — how to promote equality and justice, to uphold freedom and human rights, to end conflict and sectarian war — do not have easy answers. … Nelson Mandela reminds us that it always seems impossible until it is done."

The man who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize without accomplishing anything except demonstrating competence in raw politics and rhetoric forgot a few things.

He forgot those killer drones he sends down from the skies. And he forgot the fact that he would have bumbled us into another war in Syria had not the American people stopped him.

But it's not all talk with the president. There's that picture from the stadium, and he's grinning.

President Selfie.

jskass@tribune.com

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-kass-met-1211-2013121
1,0,1949947,full.column

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The photographer who caught Barack Obama in the act of taking a ‘selfie’ at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service says he’s sad that such a trivial moment has eclipsed the emotion of the ceremony.

AFP’s Roberto Schmidt wrote a blog post about the taking of the photo that went viral on social media and spawned a thousand media reaction stories.

Schmidt shot Obama, UK prime minister David Cameron and Danish prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt taking a photo of themselves on Ms Thorning-Schmidt’s smartphone halfway through the four-hour ceremony.

He said that after Obama’s “stirring eulogy” he decided to follow the president’s movements through his telephoto lens, and caught the moment.
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“I didn’t see anything shocking in my viewfinder,” he blogged, saying the atmosphere at the FNB Stadium was “totally relaxed.”

“I doubt anyone could have remained totally stony faced for the duration of the ceremony, while tens of thousands of people were celebrating,” he said. “For me, the behaviour of these leaders in snapping a selfie seems perfectly natural.”

He said he probably would have done the same in their place.

“The AFP team worked hard to display the reaction that South African people had for the passing of someone they consider as a father. We moved about 500 pictures, trying to portray their true feelings, and this seemingly trivial image seems to have eclipsed much of this collective work.”

Schmidt also busted the myth, popular on some websites and Twitter, that Michelle Obama’s stony-faced appearance was due to jealousy at the attention the blonde-haired Thorning-Schmidt was receiving.

“Photos can lie,” he said. “In reality, just a few seconds earlier the First Lady was herself joking with those around her, Cameron and Thorning-Schmidt included. Her stern look was captured by chance.”

He said people were interested to see politicians in a human light, and he wished the press had more access to let them show that side of themselves.

“I confess too that it makes me a little sad we are so obsessed with day-to-day trivialities, instead of things of true importance,” he wrote.

Mr Cameron today laughed off the publicity, saying he was happy to be shown to be building political bridges.

Ms Thorning-Schmidt is married to the son of former UK Labour leader Neil Kinnock

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Rap has gotten so totally idiotic it's not worth responding.

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Can't hack the comparison between Bush "selfies" (at the same event) and naked self-portraits of his own toes, so had to move the bar to Clinton's indiscretions?? Wow.

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But the guy who TOOK THE PHOTO of Obama has some words for him:

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What if W had done this ?

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Originally posted by kpo:

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What if W had done this ?

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You'd be defending him, that's for damn sure.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Originally posted by chrisisall:
AU points out where I was wrong, I acknowledge.
ANYONE points out where AU was wrong, he spins & deflects.

...it's the way of things....

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Too late. Already said it was tacky of him to have posted his pic with Bono

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Originally posted by Niki2:


Just how stupid exactly IS Rap?

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Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Oh please, let this thread die.......

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You just said I would give W a pass when I already didn't. Now you're just trolling.

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Originally posted by kpo:

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You just said I would give W a pass when I already didn't. Now you're just trolling.

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You can't wrap your head around my hypothetical. Ok never mind.

It's not personal. It's just war.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:
"Bush gropes Chancellor Merkel"

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Originally posted by chrisisall:
His hands were on fire.

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