Do you remember the famous photo of Obama in the Situation Room watching the mission to kill Osama bin Laden? Of course you do. But had you ever considered that the photo could be faked?
That’s the idea put forward by one photoblogger today, who alleged that the Commander-in-Chief could have simply been edited into the iconic image as a way of boosting his foreign policy bonafides.
From American Thinker’s Mara Zebest (who is probably enjoying Google Analytics today):
A Swedish paper makes the observation that Obama looks like a midget in the chair despite his six-foot-plus stature. When comparing the size of the surrounding people in the photo to Obama, the photo certainly gives the impression that Obama’s head (or possibly the entire body) was placed into the photo and resized a tad too small. And as a side-note observation: why is everyone in the room dressed in work attire — as if they went to work that day — except for Obama?
Compare the size of surrounding heads in the “Situation Room” photo to the size of Obama’s head. Even if you use a perspective argument — in which objects appear smaller at a greater distance — then why are the faces behind Obama still larger? Marshall Webb’s head is larger as well, and keep in mind that Marshall is sitting next to Obama (on the same plane).
[…] Another observation focuses (no pun intended) on the eyes of everyone in the room. A large and overexposed sharpened image of the “Situation Room” can be viewed here that offers a clear glimpse into the various pairs of eyes. Follow the direction of the center of focus for all the surrounding faces in the room. When zoomed in closely, the eyes are clear and detailed for many of these faces. However, not only do Obama’s eyes lack detail in this overexposed photo, but the direction of his glance appears to be pinpointing a higher plane than that of everyone else in the room. It was reported here that the famous picture was taken not in the situation room, but rather from a smaller conference room next to the situation room. A search for images of this conference room suggests that monitors are mounted on the wall just slightly above eye level when sitting — which is consistent with the gaze level of the surrounding members in the photo.
In case you were taking this seriously:
- Obama’s body looks smaller because he’s crouching down.
- Obama’s head looks smaller because he’s sitting up against the corner, which is further away from the camera than the other people in the room.
- Obama was dressed differently because he came from a game of golf.
- Obama’s eyes look differently than everyone else in the room because he’s looking at a different part of the video than everyone else is.
But as members of the media we of course are biased in favor of Obama and are secretly working to ensure his re-election, so feel free to question our arguments. In the meantime, we’ll raise some questions of our own. Like: What if the White House edited the image to disguise the face that Barack Obama was secretly a kitten?
