All Praise to the Internets! Online Will Save Us All!

by Kagro X 

Here's a little something that breaks my personal record for most topics filed under. I found via Atrios this amusing story on the always-annoying perennial NJ GOP candidate Bret Schundler. The story made it to Daily Kos, via this Dave Weigel diary a few hours later, and finally ended up on the front page under the headline, "NJ-Gov: Schundler's big F-up."

The F-up in question?

Click the images to enlarge. Then look closely at the crowds behind each candidate. Then put on a helmet and bang your head against the wall in disgust, and sit down for a Pepto Bismol cocktail. You just might be sick. Long story short, Schundler's campaign web site needed a shot with their man Bret in front of an adoring throng. But lacking one, they stole it from Howard Dean, and photoshopped different signs and hats into the crowd.

Oh, the horror!

But the best part of the whole thing is, within hours, John Pettitt, the photographer who took the Dean shot, was at Daily Kos commenting on the situation, as was one of the enthusiastic members of the crowd. Reminiscent of the USANext smear campaign against the AARP that was undone by Daily Kos member RickyMonet.

So, we'll be waiting to see what happens to Schundler, and DC-based design firm Big Fish Studio (unintentionally hilarious tag line: "Always Fresh, Never Canned"), allegedly responsible (though not exactly "taking responsibility") for the image manipulation.

A triumph for the speed and reach of the Internet. And a good reminder to web designers that if you're going to engage in online image piracy for a political campagin, stealing images from a candidate whose most dedicated adherents are online all-day, every day is one of the weaker strategies you might consider.

Comments

[al-Fubar]

My God, that's funny!

-- Rick Robinson

[Sam]

From PoliticsNJ.com:

Click here to see the song written by American University College Democrat Laura Reznick -- she's the one wearing the Schundler hat and holding up the Schundler sign, and the one wearing the Dean hat and holding up the Dean sign.

[Meteor Blades]

Remember Winston Smith? He was the gloomy protagonist in 1984 whose job in those pre-Photoshop days was to "fix" the public record to prove that Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia ...er ... Eurasia ... er ...

How immensely difficult his job would have been had he been hired to work his magic after Gore invented the Internetz.

[donna]

Geez, what a moron. Stealing a crowd scene? Couldn't find ten friends, huh?

[TCinLA]

This is one of those moments that just totally pisses me off - that we have to have morons like these idiots for opponents.

In dramatic fiction, the hero is only so heroic as the villain is villainous.

We're up against a bad copy of the Energizer Bunny! Like I keep saying, these idiots don't have the collective IQ to find the zipper on their fly with both hands on a clear day with a 2 hour advance notice (not like they have a clue what goes on behind the zipper either, poor little Taliban fools that they are).

[~DS~]

The new meme is, it was a democratic graphics designer who did it on purpose to hurt the Republicans ...

[Kagro X]

Indeed. According to the AP, Big Fish Studio also did work for Dean, and that's how they claim the photo came to be used. We'll see if that pans out.

If true, that makes for two interesting flips from Dean vendors in the last day or so -- Convio and Big Fish. Bound to happen once in a while, but a little bit embarrassing for everybody. I know that Big Fish features in its online portfolio an event promotion piece it did for GOP Congresman Randy "Duke" Cunningham. I wonder what would move the Dean campaign to contract with them.

[Incertus]

I mean, it wasn't even a good photoshop job. It didn't take an expert to see that the Schundler pic was a clumsy fake--the tough part would have been to figure out where the original came from, and even that wasn't too difficult, apparently.

[Kagro X]

It was a terrible Photoshop job. One of the worst I've ever seen by a professional shop, actually. As some observers pointed out, you could still see Dean's left hand in the composite, if you know what you're looking at.

It's just an interesting case, because every professional ad or design agency knows that when you're using photos for commercial purposes like this, obtaining the rights is a basic and crucial first step in preparing the materials for final publication. That a professional web designer would "forget" this along the way, and that the account executive in charge of the project would do the same... well, it seems odd. We'll say that.

[vetfordean]

Kagro:
Reminds me of commander shrub-meets adoring Louisiana troops--oops. There's twins, no triplets, quads in the crowd. And look, they have the same exact tilt to the head aqnd expressions. Maybe they is army clones. Rethug response: just filling in the holes. Next year they goin to need clones. Thanks for the smile.

[free dating services]

Nice posts. Thanks.