I’ll see if I can find a pic to post of what I’m talking about, but in the mean time a description will have to do…
My *&%^# of a mother-in-law sent me a jpg of prez Bush where he looks like he’s trying to get some good PR pictures of him. He’s sitting next to a child who appears to be reading a book, and prez Bush is holding the same book, only it’s upside down.
Does anyone know the source of this? Is it a real picture? When did it happen?
The reason I ask is becuse it just kind of hacked me off that my MIL would send the me the pic with some cute little saying attached like “This speaks volumes”, to which I replied back “No it doesn’t! Granted it’s not the best picture to have taken of you, but sheesh, no one would really believe that he doesn’t know which way to hold a book.”
It’s one thing to imply Bush isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but to imply he can’t make it through elementary school is preposterous.
The possibilities for replies to your MIL about overly credulous people being taken in by fake pics and assuming everything that hits their in box is a fact, present themselves.
Yeah, if you take a close look at the picture, you’ll notice the image on the back cover doesn’t line up with the edges of the book. Looks OK at a glance, but open it in a paint program and zoom in, and it’s a pretty clear fake.
The evidence Snopes provides that it’s a fake is mighty weak, IMHO. It’s likely it is the reverse of the kid’s book because the whole class is holding the same book, which is supported by the “original” photo they have.
Of course, even if it’s real, it’s meaningless because as Snopes says: “it could have come about because an aide handed the book to President Bush for a quick schoolroom photo opportunity, the President didn’t immediately notice it was upside-down because he was looking at the student to his right, and a photographer managed to snap a picture before the error was corrected.” No matter how dumb you think the man is, surely he knows when a book is upside-down or not.
Revtim, look at the middle part of the Snopes link, where it says:
Look at the two pictures directly under this quote. Snopes has taken Bush’s back-of-the-book picture and flipped it so it’s facing the same way as the kid’s, and you can easily see that it’s the mirror image of the picture on the back of the kid’s book.
The photo on the back of the kid’s book has a kind of white triangular thing in the upper left-hand corner, looks like someone wearing a white T-shirt, but in the picture on the back of Bush’s book, the white triangular thing that looks like someone wearing a white T-shirt is in the upper right-hand corner of the photo.
Also, if you squint, you can make out the mirror images of the kid holding the flag–scroll up a teeny bit and compare it with the original photograph of Lynne Cheney holding the kid on her lap. You can see the kid’s dark-sleeved arm against the white pillar in both pictures, but in mirror images.
Doh! You’re right. All you have to do is mentally flip W’s book in the fake pic, and you can see that the woman in the red top on the back cover (Ms. Cheney I presume) would be on the wrong side compared to the girl’s book in the same pic (so it doesn’t matter if the whole pic was reversed compared to the pic with boy). Thanks, DDG.
IIRC, that was taken near the DMZ in Korea. In all fairness, that guy is about as popular with the Right as Bush is with the Left, so who knows the authenticity of it.
There is a lot of photo phakery going on, as evidenced by the the following, which has been as popular with the Right as the Bush/book photo is with the left:
