Looks like they erased the mustache, shaded out the beard, darkened the face, and thereby have now smeared blacks, arabs, muslims, and Obama. There is now depth to which they will not descend.

Now, more than ever, we need to stand with our brothers and sisters who may be black or arab or muslim ... and everything else they might try to smear.

All my life repubs have tried to brand as "unAmerican" anyone they disagreed with or felt threatened by. What pathetic fearful folks they are.

Death throes. As disgusting as this is, I'm trying to push back a bit and enjoy the remaining days of what looks to be an epic flameout.

http://pufferfish.typepad.com/

Am I more disgusted that they are evil enough to stoop this low? Or that they are stupid enough to think it woo work?

The beauty of this year is that comparing McShame to Bush is far more damaging to him than this ludicrous, racist and venal juxtaposition of bin Laden and Obama.

This too shall pass. As will Republican control in Virginia and across the map. I can't wait until we can bury campaign tactics and prejudice like this in the past. I hope with President Obama we can start to do that.

Oh for pity's sake; of course that's what they did, it's typical of the kind of thing they do. Apparently; however, this election cycle is different from the past ones. Peeps aren't buying it this time, aside from the cro-magnon types.

No doubt. This is bordering on criminal here. At what point do you go after people for stuff like this? I am not familiar with criminal justice law, maybe only civil is an option, but the DNC should nail these assholes.

I don't think it looks like Obama, even with the shading. The eyes simply do not look like Obama. If he weren't as well-known as he is, the celebrity, if you will, this might be more effective.

I'm not saying that they didn't try to make it look like Obama. I'm saying that to me, there's little resemblance.

Case closed:

http://www.jetastudio.com/images/va-mailer.gif

The craziest thing about this flier is that it surely works against McCain. Just look at the slogan: "America must look evil in the eye and never flinch". Now think about the debate appearances of the candidates. Who do you trust to look someone in the eye? Who do you trust not to flinch? Twitchy, angry, scared John McCain? Or calm, responsible, authoritative Obama?

After these debates, what are they thinking, campaigning on eye contact?

Further proof that the GOP is totally tone-deaf: unaware of how their campaign is perceived outside the base.

I realize what these bozos did is seriously deranged and a disgusting misuse of the public trust, but these jokers act like children. My 7 year old son occaisonally thinks he can get away with stuff by being "tricky" but it is so obvious to an adult what is really going on, that it is cute. The problem is that these folks are adults who know better and are obviously not afraid to show the world their racist and even fascist tendencies.

The photo hasn't been distorted or altered. Where the trickery comes in is here:

* Nose, turban, hair, other features erased, so it is only eyes

* Photo is monochrome brown, effectively erasing the natural complexion.

What they've done is eliminate the numerous ways that people distinguish and identify another person, leaving it only the eyes, with no other information, including color.

What this does is 1) let them play up the "who's the enemy -- Obama or Osama?" racist hate message, while being able to defend it technically. ie. They didn't 'merge' or blend in features of Obama into the photo or distort it, but rather simply cropped out all identifying info to make it deliberately ambiguous.

This is 100% deliberate, as they've evidently taken care not to fall into the trap of airbrushing or blending in other photos or anything that could be considered photoshop malfeasance.

Couldn't some photoshop whiz do the same thing with McCain and the cryptkeeper? The man is not healthy and we all know what is waiting in the wings.

http://thetruthburns.wordpress.com/2008/09/26/mccains-maverick-left-eye-a-history-of-presidential-infirmity/

If they had really wanted to superimpose Obama with evil, they should have used cousin Cheney's face instead.

I have to say, I immediately identified the image on the flyer as Usama. He has fairly distinctive eyes.

I don’t think it’s paranoia – or even a stretch – to assume that at this point the GOP is conflating Obama with Osama by any means possible (short of actually saying that Obama launched his political career from the living room of Osama’s cave).

I'm sorry but if this sort of thing is acceptable in Sacramento, then I don't think it takes a gigantic leap in logic to assume that it was an intentional cropping out of the beard and the turban - making it less obviously a picture of Osama and more generally a menacing brown person who may or not be foreign and may or not remind you of Barack Obama - the very image of the nebulous menace in our midst that the GOP has been working so hard to conjure.

I don’t think it’s paranoia – or even a stretch – to assume that at this point the GOP is conflating Obama with Osama by any means possible (short of actually saying that Obama launched his political career from the living room of Osama’s cave).

I'm sorry but if this sort of thing is acceptable in Sacramento, then I don't think it takes a gigantic leap in logic to assume that it was an intentional cropping out of the beard and the turban - making it less obviously a picture of Osama and more generally a menacing brown person who may or not be foreign and may or not remind you of Barack Obama - the very image of the nebulous menace in our midst that the GOP has been working so hard to conjure.

This reminds me a bit of what is being done by the Sacramento GOP, which after an uproar was forced to remove several images from its website,, including one that read "Waterboard Barack Obama." Since waterboarding is a form of torture most recently associated with our treatment of Al Qaeda suspects, it's not hard to see how this is an under-the-radar association of the presidential candidate with the Islamic terrorist group.

This reminds me a bit of what is being done by the Sacramento GOP, which after an uproar was forced to remove several images from its website, including one that read "Waterboard Barack Obama." Since waterboarding is a form of torture most recently associated with our treatment of Al Qaeda suspects, it's not hard to see how this is an under-the-radar association of the presidential candidate with the Islamic terrorist group.

Look carefully at the eyes and the skin markings above the left eye. The marks are identical. It's clear they did some Clone Stamping or Healing Brush stuff in the hair and around the edges, but were too stupid to take the 10 or 15 seconds it would have taken to clone out the marks. Next look at the highlights in the eyes. They played a tad with the left eye highlight I think but highlights are not all that easy to move because the lighting used to take the original was straight on and so the highlights can pretty much only be where they are. Moving them would mean changing the lighting, It can be done, but maybe not by their PS person. Finally note that they cleaned up the white part of the eyes to the right of the cornea (as you look at the fake) but not to the left. I agree that the brown was likely picked up off a real Obama photo. No big trick. One click in fact. Really sloppy work. I grabbed the original and pretty much duplicated the fake in less than 15 minutes.

Look carefully at the eyes and the skin markings above the left eye. The marks are identical. It's clear they did some Clone Stamping or Healing Brush stuff in the hair and around the edges, but were too stupid to take the 10 or 15 seconds it would have taken to clone out the marks. Next look at the highlights in the eyes. They played a tad with the left eye highlight I think but highlights are not all that easy to move because the lighting used to take the original was straight on and so the highlights can pretty much only be where they are. Moving them would mean changing the lighting, It can be done, but maybe not by their PS person. Finally note that they cleaned up the white part of the eyes to the right of the cornea (as you look at the fake) but not to the left. I agree that the brown was likely picked up off a real Obama photo. No big trick. One click in fact. Really sloppy work. I grabbed the original and pretty much duplicated the fake in less than 15 minutes.

Tactics like this is why I say that the only good Republican is one who has passed away.