David Walker reports on how the Atlantic made a big mistake by hiring “a hardcore democrat” professional celebrity photographer to do the portrait shot of John McCain for their October issue cover.

Greenberg is well known for her highly retouched images of bears and crying babies. But she didn’t bother to do much retouching on her McCain images. “I left his eyes red and his skin looking bad,” she says.

After getting that shot, Greenberg asked McCain to “please come over here” for one more set-up before the 15-minute shoot was over. There, she had a beauty dish with a modeling light set up. “That’s what he thought he was being lit by,” Greenberg says. “But that wasn’t firing.”

What was firing was a strobe positioned below him, which cast the horror movie shadows across his face and on the wall right behind him. “He had no idea he was being lit from below,” Greenberg says. And his handlers didn’t seem to notice it either. “I guess they’re not very sophisticated,” she adds.

The Atlantic didn’t select the diabolical looking McCain for its cover. Greenberg is hoping to license that image to some other magazine (she negotiated a two-week embargo with The Atlantic so she could re-license images from the shoot before the election).

Warned that the image is just the kind of thing that will stir up the anti-media vitriol in the conservative blogosphere, Greenberg said, “Good. I want to stir stuff up, but not to the point where I get audited if he becomes president.”

That said, she goes on to explain that she’s thought about replacing McCain’s mouth with bloody shark teeth and displaying the image on a billboard with the message that the candidate is a bloodthirsty war monger.

Given her strong feelings about John McCain, we asked whether she had any reservations about taking the assignment in the first place.

“I didn’t,” she says. “It’s definitely exciting to shoot someone who is in the limelight like that. I am a pretty hard core Democrat. Some of my artwork has been pretty anti-Bush, so maybe it was somewhat irresponsible for them [The Atlantic] to hire me.”

Walker thinks that Greenberg “delivered the image the magazine asked for—a shot that makes the Republican presidential nominee look heroic,” but just look at it.

The photo was taken at an angle ideal for highlighting the candidate’s jowls, sagging neck, and lighted so as to capture every line and blemish in his face. His face is surreally reflective and its overall color is kind of a metallic bronze, except where some nasty emphatic pink makes his nose look runny and his mouth obscene. I doubt McCain’s motor vehicle picture is any more unflattering.

One of the less loveable features of the American left is the way its members are so little inhibited by good manners, professionalism, or ordinary decency from injecting their own vicious, self-righteous, and santimonious partisan perspective into anything opportunity places within their reach. These kinds of cheap shots are a key reason the culture wars are bitter as they are.

Bruce Heiden, who teaches Classics at Ohio State and is blogging as PostLiberal, explains how the McCain campaign’s fuss over the Obama “lipstick on a pig” remark wasn’t simply whining, but a kind of tactical campaign parody designed to highlight political correctness in general to the disadvantage of the democrat candidate.

The reason Team McCain went whiny this week, I believe, is that they saw in Obama’s “pig” remark an opportunity to smoke out an issue that is very important to the Obama campaign and indeed to the nation at this time. The issue is neither sexism nor offensive speech. The issue is Political Correctness. Political Correctness is the Donkey In The Room in the 2008 Presidential campaign, because Political Correctness is both the sole rationale for Barack Obama’s candidacy (as an alternative to, say, Hillary Clinton’s) and an issue that he alone of the candidates can claim. …

All throughout the spring, as political operatives and experts who had declared Obama inevitable tried to deny that Hillary Clinton had put him on the ropes, we heard in interviews about the supposed “difficulty” of running against Barack Obama. For most citizens this commentary was “analysis,” but for John McCain it was business of the most practical sort, because unlike the rest of us John McCain is in the unique position of actually running against Obama, and if there is a difficulty involved in running against Obama one of McCain’s fundamental tasks is to overcome it. If he doesn’t, he will lose.

So what was the difficulty of running against Obama supposed to be? What it amounted to was this: the public, or anyway all of it living in cafes instead of caves, allegedly felt a certain adoration of Obama that had nothing in particular to do with “issues”; and therefore the public did not want to hear Obama criticized on the issues, not to mention on other grounds. The basis for the public’s alleged love affair with Obama was not exclusively his ethnicity, but more importantly his charm, seriousness, and potential to inaugurate an era of racial harmony devoutly to be wished. Obama was, in short, No Ordinary Candidate, and an ordinary opponent foolish enough to treat Obama like an ordinary candidate would find–or so the experts predicted–that all arguments against Obama would rebound fatally upon the opponents, because the public did not want to hear Obama brought down to the level of ordinary politicians. If anyone tried it, the public would think–indeed, the public would realize–that the opponent was opposing not just a candidate but the bright future of racial harmony itself. And anyone who would do that might well be a racist, especially since the candidate they were so unfairly opposing was African-American.

Hence, according to the commentators, campaigning against Obama would be “difficult” for a politician to do. What they really meant is that it would be impossible, and that they would make it so, because in “doing their jobs” as journalists and expert commentators they would have the solemn responsibility of enforcing rules of discourse that would fix the campaigning in Obama’s favor and deprive the American voters of an open democratic discussion and freely made decision.

The fundamental task confronting a candidate running against Obama, therefore, is simply that of asserting the people’s right to have a campaign, instead of the parade the Obamacrats had concluded was their entitlement. Obama’s opponent must establish the democratic right to say out loud that the Emperor has no clothes, and to establish the right of the people to hear it, whether they want to or not; because that, Norman Lear, is the American Way. Moreover some voters do want to hear it, and others who think they don’t will be glad to have the alternative perspective once they have the chance. McCain has already changed minds in this election, but to do it he had to violate the speech code. The offensive words that sounded like drills in the ears of liberals were these: “Sarah Palin.” Among the other things liberals said about her, they said that McCain had offended women merely by putting her on the ticket. Now that’s what I would call hypersensitivity, if I didn’t know how disingenuous it really was.

Yes, Team McCain is disingenuous in slamming Obama over sexism, but precisely this transparent disingenuousnesss makes their real charge against Obama stronger instead of weaker, because the charge is that of trying to win the Presidency by imposing upon the campaigns a speech code that would shield Obama from legitimate and tough criticism. McCain’s issue here is not sexism but Political Correctess, and disingenuousness is constitutive of Political Correctness, which could be defined as disingenuous allegations that feelings have been injured by insensitive (i.e. unintentionally offensive) speech or conduct. Team McCain’s whining is a caricature of PC, but it will stick to Obama and not McCain, because everybody already knows that Obama’s campaign has been powered by PC since day one and would ride it to the White House if allowed. The Obamacrats don’t like finger pointing? Look who’s talking!

Read the whole thing.

Hat tip to Daniel Lowenstein.

Attacking John McCain as so 1980s with the 0:31 ad accusing him of being unable to send an email.

If I were Rick Davis and managing John McCain’s campaign, I’d whip up an ad showing McCain beating a couple of youthful geeks in a computer game. Hint: Spore just came out.

This McCain 0:31 campaign ad uses Obama campaign attacks on Sarah Palin as its theme.

Not tightly focused or pointed enough, in my opinion, but it glances over some effective memes.

The McCain Campaign produced a web-ad response to Senator Obama’s “lipstick on a pig” remark.

The ad used to be linked by Real Clear Politics to YouTube, but clicking on the button or the actual link will only get you this message:

This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by CBS Interactive Inc.

CBS actually is so in the tank for Obama that it would stoop to interfere with a 30 second video rebuttal. Pathetic.

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UPDATE

Ben Smith quotes CBS’s explanation for its censoring the McCain ad:

Asked about the ad, CBS spokeswoman Leigh Farris said, “CBS News does not endorse any candidate in the Presidential race. Any use of CBS personnel in political advertising that suggests the contrary is misleading.”

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You can’t see the ad right now, but the McCain Campaign did publish its script here. It goes:

CHYRON: Sarah Palin On: Sarah Palin

GOVERNOR PALIN: Do you know, they say the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull: lipstick.

CHYRON: Barack Obama On: Sarah Palin

BARACK OBAMA: Well, you know, you can, you know you can…put…uh…lipstick on a pig…it’s still a pig.

CHYRON: Katie Couric On: The Election

CBS’ KATIE COURIC: One of the great lessons of that campaign is the continued and accepted role of sexism in American life.

CHYRON: Ready To Lead? No

Ready To Smear? Yes

McCain winning Independent voters by 52-37% margin.

Gallup

Palin Nomination Impacts Obama Campaign

USATODAY:

In the new poll, taken Friday through Sunday, McCain leads Obama by 54%-44% among those seen as most likely to vote.

Before the convention, Republicans by 47%-39% were less enthusiastic than usual about voting. Now, they are more enthusiastic by 60%-24%, a sweeping change that narrows a key Democratic advantage. Democrats report being more enthusiastic by 67%-19%.

New Rasmussen Poll:

Palin is viewed favorably by 58% of American voters.

51% of Americans believe that most reporters are trying to hurt Palin’s campaign.

The Palin pick has also improved perceptions of John McCain. A week ago, just before he introduced his running mate, just 42% of Republicans had a Very Favorable opinion of their party’s nominee. That figure jumped to 54% by this Friday morning. Among unaffiliated voters, favorable opinions of McCain have increased by eleven percentage points in a week—from 54% before the Palin announcement to 65% today.

Fifty-one percent (51%) of all voters now believe that McCain made the right choice when he picked Palin to be his running mate.

John McCain is clearly not a gifted rhetorician. His voice is high and reedy. Unlike Barack Obama, he could never make a living as an advertising announcer. Last night’s speech demonstrated that McCain is no Churchill either. Listening to John McCain is a lot like listening to the president of one’s local American Legion chapter deliver the annual Veteran’s Day address.

McCain’s speech was different from our standard political fare. It made no attempt at grandeur. It failed to compete for a place in the roll of great American political speeches. But it was unusual with respect to being obviously both entirely sincere and deeply personal.

The beginning section was particularly Rotarian, featuring a long series of expressions of gratitude toward, and affection for, his wife and other family members, including (remarkably) his 96-year-old mother. Maybe America is not so much in danger of being governed by Sarah Palin anytime soon, I reflected, noting McCain’s mother’s remarkable preservation.

From the personal tributes, McCain advanced remorselessly on to the inevitable platitudes and promises. To my displeasure, he demonstrated that he is dumb enough to subscribe to the nonsense about Anthropogenic climate change and conformist enough to offer to assume the responsibility of producing new energy technologies. The market seems to some of us to be already providing very ample cash incentives to anyone who can produce those.

Only in the final six minutes of so of McCain’s speech did he proceed beyond conventionalities and become genuinely moving. John McCain turned suddenly to address the subject of his experiences as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. Rather than “reporting for duty,” as some have done, and trying to claim the presidency on the basis of his war-time heroism and service, McCain depicted his capture and subsequent ordeal as a personal conversion experience.

Before being captured, he described himself as proud and arrogant, eager to break rules and have fun, his focus of attention and admiration being John McCain. Injured and reduced to helplessness with two broken arms, and unable to feed himself, McCain described how two of his fellow prisoners did everything for him. One could hear both the shame of his own helplessness and his humble gratitude in his voice.

McCain described ultimately being broken and degraded by the Vietnamese communists by extreme and prolonged torture (and I don’t mean pouring water over saran wrap on his face), and being lifted from despair by the code of honor and brotherhood faithfully maintained through the worst adversity by his fellow prisoners.

It was McCain’s experience of the American character, of the operation of American values in the worst possible circumstance, the daily manifestations of courage, decency, and goodness, that made John McCain genuinely love his country, and yearn to serve it unselfishly, he told us. That experience made him into a new man.

“I won’t let you down.’ John McCain promised. And his deep sincerity was perfectly obvious. John McCain did not convince me that he was going to make the greatest political speeches, or that he was going to suddenly develop 50 more IQ points, become an intellectual, and adopt firm and reliable conservative principles, alas! But, he did convince me that he does mean to do his best, according to such lights as he possesses.

I wish those lights had a bit higher wattage, but I have no doubt his lights are better than Obama’s, his values and his experience are better than Obama’s, and Lord knows! his vice presidential choice is a lot better than Obama’s.

The arch-traditionalist who writes under the pen name Spengler was in attendance at the democrat convention in Denver, and reports that he could read the handwriting on the Invesco Stadium’s Greek temple wall. Campaigning will go on, but it’s really already all over but the shouting.

Senator Barack Obama’s acceptance speech last week seemed vastly different from the stands of this city’s Invesco Stadium than it did to the 40 million who saw it on television. Melancholy hung like thick smog over the reserved seats where I sat with Democratic Party staffers. The crowd, of course, cheered mechanically at the tag lines, flourished placards, and even rose for the obligatory wave around the stadium. But its mood was sour. The air carried the acrid smell of defeat, and the crowd took shallow breaths. Even the appearance of R&B great Stevie Wonder failed to get the blood pumping.

The speech itself dragged on for three-quarters of an hour. As David S. Broder wrote in the Washington Post: “[Obama’s] recital of a long list of domestic promises could have been delivered by any Democratic nominee from Walter Mondale to John Kerry. There was no theme music to the speech and really no phrase or sentence that is likely to linger in the memory of any listener. The thing I never expected did in fact occur: Al Gore, the famously wooden former vice president, gave a more lively and convincing speech than Obama did.”

On television, Obama’s spectacle might have looked like The Ten Commandments, but inside the stadium it felt like Night of the Living Dead. …

I sat in on a session with three leaders of Veterans for Obama, a group of retired young officers who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan, courtesy of the New Republic’s writer on the scene, David Samuels. …

Gandalf’s warnings about the irresistible voice of the wizard Saruman in J R R Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings come to mind. If these battle-hardened veterans of America’s wars fell so easily under the spell of Obama’s voice, who can withstand it? Obama’s persuasive powers, though, are strongest when channeled through the empathy of his interlocutor. Everyone believes that Obama feels his pain, shares his dream, and will fight his fight and heal his ills. But that is everyone as an individual. Add all the individuals up into a campaign platform, and it turns into three-quarters of an hour worth of promises that echo all the ghosts of conventions past. …

McCain’s choice of vice presidential candidate made obvious after the fact what the party professionals felt in their fingertips at the stadium extravaganza yesterday: rejecting Clinton in favor of the colorless, unpopular, tangle-tongued Washington perennial Joe Biden was a statement of weakness. McCain’s selection was a statement of strength. America’s voters will forgive many things in a politician, including sexual misconduct, but they will not forgive weakness.

That is why McCain will win in November, and by a landslide, barring some unforeseen event. Obama is the most talented and persuasive politician of his generation, the intellectual superior of all his competitors, but a fatally insecure personality. American voters are not intellectual, but they are shrewd, like animals. They can smell insecurity, and the convention stank of it. Obama’s prospective defeat is entirely of its own making. No one is more surprised than Republican strategists, who were convinced just weeks ago that a weakening economy ensured a Democratic victory. …

McCain doesn’t have a tenth of Obama’s synaptic fire-power, but he is a nasty old sailor who knows when to come about for a broadside. Given Obama’s defensive, even wimpy selection of a running-mate, McCain’s choice was obvious. He picked the available candidate most like himself: a maverick with impeccable reform credentials, a risk-seeking commercial fisherwoman and huntress married to a marathon snowmobile racer who carries a steelworkers union card. …

The young Alaskan governor, to be sure, hasn’t any business running for vice president of the United States with her thin resume. McCain and his people know this perfectly well, and that is precisely why they put her on the ticket. If Palin is unqualified to be vice president, all the less so is Obama qualified to be president.

McCain has certified his authenticity for the voters. He’s now the outsider, the reformer, the maverick, the war hero running next to the Alaskan amazon with a union steelworker spouse. Obama, who styled himself an agent of change, took his image for granted, and attempted to ensure himself victory by doing the cautious thing. He is trapped in a losing position, and there is nothing he can do to get out of it.

Obama, in short, is long on brains and short on guts. A Shibboleth of American politics holds that different tactics are required to win the party primaries as opposed to the general election, that is, by pandering to fringe groups with disproportionate influence in the primaries. But Obama did not compromise himself with extreme positions. He did not have to, for younger voters who greeted him with near-religious fervor did not require that he take any position other than his promise to change everything. Obama could have allied with the old guard, through an Obama-Clinton ticket, or he could have rejected the old guard by choosing the closest thing the Democrats had to a Sarah Palin. But fear paralyzed him, and he did neither. …

Obama’s failure of nerve at the cusp of his success is consistent with my profile of the candidate, in which I predicted that he would self-destruct. It’s happening faster than I expected. …

By all rights, the Democrats should win this election. They will lose, I predict, because of the flawed character of their candidate.

Read the whole thing.

Sarah Palin Unveils the Alaska State Quarter

Newt Gingrich sent Bill Kristol the following email, which he authorized him to share.

Authenticity is the one word threat to the Obama-Biden ticket.

There is something going on this weekend which traditional pundits, traditional consultants and traditional politicians are simply missing. All of the normal biography-oriented and issue-oriented analysis misses an emotional gestalt event comparable to when Ronald Reagan in 1980 crystalized his leadership in New Hampshire when he seized control of the GOP debate.

In one sudden moment Friday, John McCain fundamentally changed American politics in a manner that transcends issues and details.

The great threat to the Obama-Biden ticket can be captured in one word: authenticity.

There is something unaffected and “unsophisticated” (in the Columbia, Princeton, Harvard and University of Chicago meanings of the word) about Governor Palin. She really was point guard of a state championship basketball team. She really is a competent hunter. She is a hockey mom. She has one son about to go to Iraq.

She has 13 years in elected office

By any practical standard she has done far more in the real world with much more spontaneity and practicality than Barack Obama. And there is something deeply real and courageous about John McCain ignoring most of his advisers and all of the “insider wisdom” to reach out to a younger woman whose greatest characteristic is undaunted courage and a willingness to clean out the corruption in her own party.

This is a moment of stunning authenticity versus a sad collapse on the part of the Obama campaign from ” change you can count on” to politics as usual, as marked by Obama’s choice of a senator first elected when Palin was 9 years old. …

Finally 2008 really has given us “change we can count on.” Ironically, it is the McCain-Palin ticket.

Neil, a commenter on Classical Values, offers this analysis:

Mitt Romney would’ve been the safe choice–he would’ve delivered Michigan, along with a 51% victory.

With this choice, McCain has stated his intention to “shoot the moon”. He’s solidified his existing alliances and has now reached out to many disenchanted Democrats, but without alienating his base of support.

He’s going to try for a blowout…

Simon himself says:

The smell of fear is in the air. There is blood in the water and the sharks are circling. Despite the fact that this year should be a lock for Democrats from top to bottom, I think there is a strong likelihood that the Democrats could lose control of the House and Senate. I think the Presidency is already a lost cause for them.

Hat tip to Bird Dog.