Yes, I have returned from my Delawarean haunt to bring the great detective work of my fellow contributor at Delaware Liberal, Liberal Geek, who lived up to his name, as you will see. He has given me permission to repost this to Daily Kos for a wider national audience.
The main Delaware right wing blog, Delaware Politics, posted the following picture today, which is the latest focus of Glenn Beck's idiocy.
As you can see, the picture shows a bookshelf with Obama-themed children's books with a large sign above it saying "Religion"
It seemed bizarre to me, so I started doing some research. Apparently there are at least two versions of this picture on the Internet. One, the Beck version, has been scrubbed of EXIF data (hidden information recorded to the picture by the camera), but the other one has the EXIF data intact, at least this copy of it does. If you take a look at the hidden data, it is very enlightening. The image was captured by an iPhone. This is key to our research, since the iPhone also has a built-in GPS.
Here is a sample of the EXIF data:
# Camera Make = Apple
# Camera Model = iPhone
# X-Resolution = 72/1 = 72
# Y-Resolution = 72/1 = 72
# X/Y-Resolution Unit = inch (2)
# Last Modified Date/Time = 2009:02:13 11:55:37
# GPS Latitude Reference = N
# GPS Latitude = 32/1,4842/100,0/1 [degrees, minutes, seconds] = 32° 48.42′
# GPS Longitude Reference = W
# GPS Longitude = 96/1,4785/100,0/1 [degrees, minutes, seconds] = 96° 47.85′
The hidden data reveals that the image was captured at the following coordinates:
32° 48.42′ N by 96° 47.85′ W
Which translates into Borders Books at 3600 Mckinney Ave, Dallas, TX 75204.
So I called this Borders and asked them if they had such a display now or in the past. The answer was a resounding "No."
The photo has a time-stamp of 11:55AM. If that timestamp is in Greenwich Mean Time, that would be 5:55AM Dallas time. Or it could be 11:55 AM Dallas time.
Perhaps I'll call the store back and suggest that one of their employees that was working at 6AM on Feb 13th rearranged their store shelves to make a political point. Oh, and that he owns an iPhone.
Delaware Dem's final point
So what does this all mean? The point of Glenn Beck's rage is that this is proof of a cult like following for President Obama. That somehow the President, or the Democratic Party, or the evil liberal Borders Bookstore was peddling this notion that children reading about the President now classifies as a religious education. It all fits into the conservative mockery that Obama is some kind of messiah.
The EXIF data in the iPhone picture allows us to track down where the picture was taken, and through a phone call we are able to confirm that it was none of those things. This was most likely a prank by an opponent of the President who shares Glenn Beck's radical views, and who placed a "Religion" above the Obama children's book display and then took a picture of it, rather than a nefarious plot by President Obama, the Democratic Party and the evil liberal Border's Bookstore to associate the President with religion.
I will leave aside for now the privacy issues concerning the EXIF data on iPhone pictures.