On first pass, you might assume this has something to do with the beating Newt administered in the S. Carolina primary. Instead, it was designed almost two weeks ago for the January 16th issue (released on the 13th) but never ran.

ow that the Biz Week Creative Director has released this, it is being paired with the latest New York Magazine cover supposedly emphasizing how bloody the campaign has been. Frankly, though, I don’t think this election cycle has been any more vicious than in the past, and it may even be less so. That framing, on the other hand, seems to KO the obvious, which is the problem of Mitt and his bankroll. The magazine has said as much. According to Businessweek, the theme had to do with “how the GOP had turned on Mitt Romney and Private Equity.”

Bottom line, I can’t see this illustration coming to be simply based on the GOP candidate’s shoving each other around. What it seems to express quite well, however, is all that pent up rage directed toward Wall Street and the 1% (and whatever smaller fraction you can count Romney in).

(illustration: still looking)

That’s quite an interesting use of a slogan here.

I can’t remember ever seeing a “Nixon’s Shifty,” “Carter is Soft” or “George H. W. Bush is Out of Touch” sign behind a candidate. And the “ISN’T WORKING” — do you think that’s an attempted dog whistle? Isn’t working… food stamp president…. are they saying he’s a lazy n-word? Seems they may be stringing that stuff together with an ulterior motive.

One other point: Many Americans are out of work and have been for some time. Maybe these citizens have given up looking in this climate. Still, it’s a minority of people who are jobless. “Bob isn’t working” is a remark you make when you blame Bob for his situation. His unemployment becomes partly if not mostly his fault. It’s a little dig his mother-in-law takes at him whenever asked. Her response isn’t, “Bob can’t find a job,” or “Bob works in a field that has been hard hit by the recession.”

Tons of conservatives say it every day about their son-in-law, their neighbor, the mildly disliked spouse of a cousin. It’s a subtle dig someone takes to say “the situation is Bob’s fault.”

Finally, isn’t the slogan just a little bit hypocritical coming from a guy whose been bragging about being unemployed?

– Karen Hull

(photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images caption: Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney delivers a speech at the National Gypsum Company January 24, 2012 in Tampa, Florida. Romney’s speech was billed as a “prebuttal” to tonight’s State of the Union speech by President Barack Obama.)

In an interview with KFYI radio in Phoenix, Brewer said Obama was “somewhat thin-skinned and a little tense, to say the least.”

from: President Obama, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer Share Tense Tarmac Moment (ABC)

1. Commenting on the nature of Obama’s skin, huh?

“Coincidentally,” Newt repeated the same phrase in responding to the story.

2. This shot above got the overwhelming share of attention because it best captures the situation — a reactionary governor, overflowing with the same lack of respect for the President as the radical far-right she’s aligned with, hitting him with a handwritten letter insisting on a follow-up meeting after she trashed him in a recent book for allegedly not being personable enough when she met him at the White House. From the pool account, Obama responded to the letter with some unbridled thoughts about the book. Now, Newt can characterize it as Obama “lecturing her” again, but you could just as well call it an ambush. (Note Obama with the letter in his hand.)

3. Given that most voters realize how overly cerebral and meditated he is, Obama must realize it’s actually reassuring for people to see him get “a little passionate,” especially when the opposition rams his civility and compromise down his throat.

4. Maybe the best commentary on the Obama – Brewer interaction, however, can be seen in this photo PhillyBurbs included in its tarmac story. Consider it an analogy about relative maturity.

(photos: Haraz N. Ghanbari/AP caption 1: Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer clashes with President Obama after he arrived at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport on Wednesday.)

A large part of the difficulty is that it is virtually impossible to get photographs of actual suicides and one would surely have to challenge the ethics of taking such photographs if one could do so. And yet it is not sufficient to turn a blind eye to the situation.  A slideshow at the Denver Post titled “Welcome Home” is much to the point in this regard as it invites us to see into the life and mind of at least one contemporary war veteran and his struggles with readjusting to the civilian world.  Part of the story conveyed by the slideshow is the all too conventional tale  that the veteran’s return home is experienced as altogether lonely and alienating, and in any case anything but welcoming.  No less true for being conventional, the photograph above signals a second, more poignant and even more troubling story as well. Tattooed with what appears to be the face of death—a marking which it will turn out is probably not incidental—the wrist belongs to Brian Scott Ostrom, an honorably discharged veteran of the U.S. Marine Corp’s Second Reconnaissance Battalion who served two tours of duty in Iraq.  Ostrom did not commit suicide, but as the fresh stitches that mark his wrist indicate, he made a serious attempt at doing so.  In fact, it was his second such attempt.  The question, of course, is why?

Like so many veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, Ostrom suffers from PTSD, a psychological disorder that manifests itself in panic attacks and fits of rage that often lead to physical violence.  Frequently that violence is directed outwards at other people or physical objects, but just as often it is directed inward at an intractable guilt that simply never goes away—and, of course, that cannot be seen. Part of that guilt is a result of having voluntarily participated in a troglodyte world in which all empathy for the other is evacuated, a world in which there is no difference between doing’s one’s job and behaving in the most brutal ways imaginable … and yet, in Ostrom’s own words, not feeling bad for “anything I did over there,” but “for what I didn’t do.”

The words are as cryptic as is the face of death on Ostrom’s wrist.  But both take on an eerie and troubling significance when we recall something he said earlier in his narrative, reflecting on his PTSD, “I think it comes from the fact that I survived.  That wasn’t my plan.  It’s an honor to die for your country, but I made it home.”  And then this, “Every one of us has a suicide plan.  We all know how to kill, and we all have a plan to kill ourselves.”  What he didn’t do was to die for his country.  The words are as hard to hear as the photograph above is to look at.

But look at it we must, for in its own way it illustrates the problem faced by our returning war veterans writ large—a point emphasized by the fact that the hand itself is disembodied; it could belong to Ostrom (as it does) but it could belong to any of the thousands of returning veterans (or for that matter to those who might be inducted to fight in future wars):  Bred to kill and marked by death, our warriors are assimilated into a topsy-turvy world in which survival is a sign of failure, and doing one’s job well results in dishonor.  And there does not seem to be any way out except for one.   Perhaps the only wonder is that the suicide rate amongst our veterans is as low as it is.

–John Lucaites

See Denver Post slideshow: “Welcome Home.” Photo: Craig F. Walker/Denver Post.

Cross-posted from No Caption Needed

I believe the photo shows the Obamas, right after the State of the Union, calling the parents of an American hostage rescued from Somalia. He may not have been able to mention the rescue in front of Congress during the SOTU (oh, damn), but look where he’s making his call: right in front of the Congress (on the wall)!  Hilarious bit of manipulation.

– Karen Hull

(photo: Pete Souza/White House)

1. Always too ready to pull on the hair shirt and dole out the shame, Obama was surprising smiley and positive last night. The strategy worked well, the GOP’s stony-faced players coming off like cold-shouldered nay sayers. Besides Cantor and Mitch McConnell (who might have been embalmed for all I could tell), the Daniels GOP televised response proved the greatest contrast. Obama, the optimist, versus Mitch, the undertaker.

2. Cantor and McCarthy caught in the act. If both sides were on reasonably good behavior, shots like this are meant to remind that division in DC is more hopeless than ever.

3. Best defense is a good offense? What jumped out at me was Obama’s extended military allusions, including cutaways to Panetta and the Generals, at both the open and close of the speech. Someday, people will look back at the Obama Administration and marvel at just how thoroughly Barack and Michelle used the military to insulate themselves.

4. After sitting through 18 GOP debates, this speech was finely crafted for rebuttal. “The signal” on this photo? Buffet secretary alongside Jobs’ wife = pay your fair share + I’m not anti-business!

5. The presence of Giffords offered a rare indication that the Congressional body (at least for an evening) had a heart.

Honorable mention:

I couldn’t figure out Bachmann’s ensemble. It either had something to do with “Snow White,” or some kind of abstinence telegraph.

———-

photo 1, 5 & 7: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images photo 2: AP Photo/APTN photo 3: Win McNamee/Getty Images photo 4: Larry Downing/Reuters photo 6: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

If the tone of the story is deferential to the (economy-bleeding) U.S. war machine, the accompanying photo story approaches the promotional. (Only two of the captions on the 15 muscular, dramatic and romanticized photos taken in the skies or aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. John C. Stennis, for example, even make reference to the main point — the diminished effectiveness of these military resources. And in the photos, you see not evidence of it at all.

I wanted to mention this photo, in particular (#7 in the slideshow). Photos of fighter jets, bombs, pilots on flight decks, and control rooms with lots of electronics and colored lights are sexy, but they’re also pretty standard. In contrast (to all the other shots of boys, and boys doing boy-things), this blonde servicewoman in a bright shirt running a cloth over an opened-up F/A-18, sporting brightly-colored tats on both arms (the near one, also a women), emphasizes how militaristic imagery can be seductive in a more contemporary way, further obscuring the declining value of the lethal hardware and “collateral damage” with women, body art, color and large format imagery to amplify more cultural cool. (It’s hard to tell, but do the eyebrows, or just the expression, suggest that’s a woman on the deck in front of those Super Hornets, also?)

(photo: Tyler Hicks/The New York Times. caption 1: Captain Bull, who leads a team of three FA-18F Super Hornets, prepares for a mission in Afghanistan. caption 2: Aviation ordnancemen, commonly known in the Navy as “red shirts,” assemble 500-pound training bombs. caption 3: Working in the hangar bay of the John C. Stennis. There are 44 F/A-18s aboard the carrier. embedded caption: Senior officers gathered to smoke cigars and socialize after the last planes wrapped up their missions and returned to the John C. Stennis on Jan. 12.)

Well, I got emotional.

You’d have to have a pretty cold heart not to feel the ache in each switch between Giffords before and Giffords now.

At the same time, however, this felt anything but a thank you and farewell. Watch the first eleven seconds again, with the Western montage, and then the next four as Gabby begins: “Arizona is my home.” Given the format, the music, the length, it’s almost indistinguishable from a campaign video. Now, you might say the ad style simply pays respects to her passion and dedication to the role, and reluctance to let it go. I think it’s a lot more savvy than than that, though. (You recall the famous: “Hello, I must be going!” line?) Given how the recovery and rehab has been as heedful media-wise as medically, this reads like a formal re-introduction — the announcement that, (if and) as soon as it’s humanly possible, Gabby’s back in the ring.

Lott is not exactly out there on a limb, by the way. For a couple more visual example of the physics, try the big scary head from photog Eric Gay or the illustration from DonkeyHotey at DKos. But Santorum painted just as clear a picture in the last debate. He said:

Grandiosity has never been a problem with Newt Gingrich. He — he handles it very, very well. (Cheers, applause.) And that’s really one of the issues here, folks. I mean, a month ago, he was saying that, oh, I’m — it’s inevitable that I’m going to win the election and it’s — I’m destined to do it.
…

I don’t want a nominee that I have to worry about going out and looking at the paper the next day and figuring out what is he — worrying about what he’s going to say next.
…
I mean, and — and — and — and let’s just be honest. I mean — (cheers, applause) — I mean, Newt’s a friend, I love him, but at times you just got to — you know, sort of that, you know, worrisome moment that something’s going to pop. And we can’t afford that in a nominee. We need someone — I’m not the most flamboyant and I don’t get the biggest applause lines here, but I’m steady. I’m solid. I’m not going to go out and do things that you’re going to worry about.

I’m telling you. Something’s gonna pop.

(photo: Joshua Lott caption: Mitt Romney, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich on a television screen in Johnston, Iowa.)

“Sign up to be a member of this army of Davids,” he declared, as he urged people to visit his cainconnections.com website.

– from: “Stephen Colbert, Herman Cain Hold Rally In South Carolina” (Sam Stein/HuffPo)

Salt-and-pepper!

Best part is the poster, a hyperbolic ticket of way-visionary faux reactionaries. The funny thing is, Cain is so narcissistic he’s actually beyond getting played by Colbert. Call it par for the course in this you’re-never-dead GOP campaign. Now, where’s that sexual harassment update?

(photos: Jason Reed/Reuters caption: Actor and television host Stephen Colbert hugs former Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain during a South Carolina primary rally at the College of Charleston, South Carolina, January 20, 2012. The South Carolina Primary will be held on January 21..)