UPDATE#2:
A more thorough account of this story is in today's recommended list. The writer is Troutnut.
. . . continued at the bottom of the story.
I generally attempt to avoid conspiratorial conclusions, but I have just watched a Hillary Clinton campaign commercial that raises a few troubling questions.
It seems the issue de jure for the Clinton campaign is now national security. The whole 3 a.m. bit. Towards that end, the Clinton campaign has a new commercial up today that attacks Barack Obama for not holding hearings regarding Afghanistan for the Senate subcommittee that he has chaired since the start of 2007.
So far, fair enough I would say. The commercial shows a clip of Sen. Obama answering a question about the matter during the debate in Cleveland on Thursday. This is where the trouble begins.
First, I will allow all of you to look at both the debate clip and the campaign commercial. Sen. Obama's response to the question at the debate comes at about the 4:40 mark. Watch them both and see if anything seems a bit askew.
Youtube Debate Clip
Clinton Campaign Commercial
Call me crazy, but it certainly appears to me that Sen. Obama's skin tone is significantly darker in the Clinton campaign commercial. Watch it again and see if you agree.
Now, as most of us know, one of the ways in which to demonize a person of color is to make them appear darker than they are. By this twisted logic, somehow being more black makes you more threatening.
One of the first times I distinctly recall this issue being brought to the forefront was the Time Magazine cover picture of O.J. Simpson after his arrest. Time was heavily criticized for darkening the shade of Simpson's skin in the cover photograph.
Whether intentional or not, the message was that a darker skinned Mr. Simpson somehow was more threatening or frightening than a lighter skinned Juice.
Notwithstanding the ridiculousness of this notion, it attempts to exploit stereotypes concerning race--specifically, to dredge up fear of black men.
IF the Clinton campaign has deliberately doctored the footage of Sen. Obama to exploit racist fears, she should be banished from American political life--along with anyone else involved.
I would like a few opinions on this. Am I over-reacting? Are there plausible explanations for the difference? Is this an issue that should be investigated further?
Let me know what you think.
UPDATE:A few of the comments have properly pointed out that the entire Clinton commercial is in darker tones. It has also been pointed out that darker tones are often used to subtlety demonize political opponents.
Both of those points are well-taken. However, is there or should there be a double standard when one of the candidates is a person of color--i.e., is it OK for a white politician to darken or distort the image of another white politician in a commercial, but not a black candidate?
If the answer to the previous question is yes, why?
Also, why is it EVER OK to distort an image of a political opponent?
And why do we accept that to make them look worse we darken them?
I appreciate your comments on the matter.
UPDATE#2 Continued:
First, I have linked where I came across the Clinton campaign commercial. The commercial was included in a WaPo story by Chris Cillizza. The story was posted on the Washington Post's website at 9:08 a.m. yesterday. I watched the campaign commercial and though it looked a bit odd. My diary was posted by noon yesterday.
I immediately went and viewed a few different versions of the included clips on Youtube. Sen. Obama's complexion seemed obviously altered and darker in the Clinton clip. I posted both links for views to look at them and form their own opinions.
My original thought was why do we accept distortion of images in campaign commercials in a way that we never would with, say, words. If a campaign was caught editing sound to make another candidate say something they did not say, everyone would probably be rightly disgusted. It's unacceptable.
However, it's somehow become acceptable and common practice to visually distort images to make them something they are not. Why?