Is this a joke put out by Obama critics? It seems not, but...wow. What was it like in the meeting when they decided this was a good idea? On second thought, I don't want to know.

subliminal "if you don't vote for this black man you are a racist"

Believe? In what?

I feel like I'm being told to Believe in my Great Father in Washington.

Can you provide a link for that photo?

This is so bizarre. The weirdest part about it is that he doesn't act as though he is ever onboard with this type of thing or at least him being okay with himself being presented this way.

There are times when your not suprised he's have an ad like this......

I can't even say what I mean! It's just too wierd!

Wow, that is scary...
I wonder what George Orwell would think?

Could someone provide a link that verifies this photo as an actual Obama campaign publications? Thanks.

I am OZ, the great and powerful OZ!

My head floats in space and eventually will fill all space.

It is so profound and soulful, that you will be grateful to see every mole and freckle of it revealed by my edgy wanna-be Annie Leibowitz photographer. My body...I have left it behind, for I have no body but you, you who are the change you are looking for. So here is the great head that I am, offered up to you up close, kindly and deep and let us hope as silk-screen-able as Che's.

****************************************************
The truth is, some image-science puffster convinced him that this was "brand-cool" but still presidential.

It isn't... but it presents an interesting copyright +trademark vs. 1st ammendment +107 fair use issues.

OFA owns the 2012+symbol, and this picture is a clear infringement and misrepresentation of affiliation.

On the other hand the image isn't that bad, it is pretty clearly user content that OFA takes no responsibility and assumes no liability for, and it is fairly close to being protected political speech.

I also doubt the author of this poster owns the copyright in the picture.

Yes, very reminiscent of "Big Brother." Scary, but also absurd. Let's hope his "hope and change" crew remain this utterly clueless!

Remember when Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton was supporting Hillary in 2008, maintaining that Obama was not an authentic black man. Now Obama, given his shrinking support elsewhere, needs to get out the black vote on a big scale. Is this close-up photograph designed to remove all doubt about this light-skinned, mixed race man?

It reminds me of that weird episode of Star Trek (the original series) where 1960s celeb lawyer Melvin Belli played a grandiloquent, faux-soothing Pied Piper of sorts called "The Angel" and his huge floating visage menacingly filled the viewing screen on the bridge of the Starship Enterprise.

But can this poster be for real? I'm with Tim Seibel in wanting to see positive confirmation that it is NOT a parody . . . Obama and his campaign folks can't possibly be THAT clueless, can they?

I'll admit that I didn't find it on any official site, but neither is it a parody. A Facebook friend who is a devoted Obama supporter posted it--he apparently liked it very much.

Not good enough, John!

"a Facebook friend" !!

Well, that certainly adds enormous credibility to this whole thing...

Don't make me bring out Michele Bachmann's actual campaign materials - they're probably about on par with this gem from the Presidential Prayer Team a few years back:

https://www.muttmansion.com/pics/041505/bush_praying_for_peace.jpg

Of course, Bachmann would probably toss in Tom Petty, Gen. Patton, and Col. Potter from M*A*S*H...

Look, if it was fair play to circulate the creepy video of the church service where kids were encouraged to pray for a cardboard image of G.W. Bush (surely not something for which the Bush campaign was responsible), then surely there's nothing wrong with my circulating this.

I "google" Obama - BELIEVE in the images search and get scores of images, some of which we will remember from the 08 election.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Obama+-+BELIEVE&hl=en&client=gmail&rls=gm&prmd=ivns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=d7UQTv-1JIKhtweg_oW7CA&ved=0CBoQsAQ&biw=1280&bih=618

The photograph from this image is from a Time magazine cover: https://www.shallownation.com/2008/08/25/barack-obama-time-magazine-cover-september-1-2008/

So complain to Time about the image which looks like a photo they had used more than once.

Apparently, "Leadership we can believe in" is the campaign slogan for Obama 2012. What's the difference?

"Apparently, "Leadership we can believe in" is the campaign slogan for Obama 2012. What's the difference?"

An English teacher is asking that (with a straight face, presumably) ??

I am sorry you couldn't understand what I meant in my bloggy short-cut language.

What's the difference between putting "BELIEVE" on the bottom of a 2008 campaign poster with the image of Obama on it (or this image unavoidably noted in the post,) as opposed to another poster with a picture of Obama and "Leadership we can believe in," which currently is his 2012 campaign poster slogan? I suppose one reads as a command and the other as a suggestion -- "you can believe" in his leadership as opposed to "you must believe in him."

For those of us who don't believe or cannot believe in his leadership, this is all laughable. I know people, even have realtives, who "BELIEVE" and find it uncomprehensible that they rest of us do not.

"Leadership we can believe in" -- LOL. The guy is an empty suit, as I've said all along. The only President in my lifetime who was this clueless as Jimmy Carter. "We" can only hope that he has an electoral debacle just like Jimmy's.

C'mon. Politics was Jimmy Carter's 3d career, after satisfactory runs in the Navy and in agribusiness. He was no stranger to public administration, having completed a term as Governor of Georgia without adverse incidents, and was noted for his (often excessive) attention to detail. More than any President in the last 50 years, he was allergic to public sector borrowing. No one who ran against them found their divorce records introduced into the public domain. Carter made a number of bad policy decisions, has some personality defects, and has a prideful bourbonish aspect to him ('learnt nothing and forgot nothing'). However, equating the current incumbent with Mr. Carter is an insult Mr. Carter surely has not earned.

I wasn't saying they were identical, only that their Presidencies have a similar level of incompetence. I think he is a better man than Obama, but that doesn't change the fact that his Presidency was an abject failure. And some of the things he's said over the years confirms him as a first-class flake.

Mr. Carter made some bad policy decisions, as anyone in that office will. Two courses he followed had ill-effects which were generalized and obtrusive. By my count, nine of the fourteen chief executives we have had since 1929 made bad policy decisions which had generalized and obtrusive ill-effects. In Mr. Carter's case, the two courses of action were:

1. Monetary policy which allowed the rate of currency erosion to increase from 5% to 13% (though some of that was a measurement artifact).

2. Allowing an act of piracy by the government of Iran to degenerate into a nightly soap opera. A country needs its prestige. Its prestige renders its military power somewhat fungible.

===

Inflation is an irritant which does induce some productivity loss in an economy. It was nowhere near the danger to public well-being that the banking crisis has been or than the trashing of the public credit has been. The economy suffered a quite mild recession in 1980. We were never in danger of the major economic implosion we are today.

As for our prestige, the war in Afghanistan is being scheduled around the President's re-election campaign. I could imagine at least three of his thirteen immediate predecessors doing that (not that they did that). The rap on Mr. Carter in 1980 was that he made use of the confrontation with Iran in ways that exacerbated matters but which were useful in dispatching Edward Kennedy. Perhaps, but I am not sure he had control of the narrative to that degree.