Whose banner is it, anyway? (AIR FORCE TIMES)

[DoYouEverWonder]

Air Force Times

President George W. Bush’s staff played more of a role in the “Mission Accomplished” sign that hung on the carrier Abraham Lincoln than the president suggested yesterday in a Rose Garden press conference.

Bush declared the end of major combat operations in Iraq from the Lincoln’s deck on May 1. Since then about 215 American troops have been killed in action and hundreds more wounded.

The president sought to distance himself from the upbeat message in the banner, explaining at Tuesday’s press conference that the idea for the sign came from the ship’s crew.

<snip>

The White House communications office, well known for the care it takes with the backdrops at Bush speeches, created the “Mission Accomplished” banner in the same style as banners the president uses in other appearances, including one just a week before the carrier appearance in Canton, Ohio. That banner, with the same soft, brush-stroked American flag in the background and the identical typeface, read: “Jobs and Growth.”




(Isn't this the same pic that a DUer posted earlier to prove that the banner had to have been made by the WH? Amazing how fast things get around the internet. Otherwise the story is a whitewash but these guys must be under orders to tow the party line.)

[IndianaGreen]

1. Excellent find!

This is the standard White House banner, all they have to do is to put whatever they want on the foreground.

Some shit having the Commander-in-Chief blame the sailors of the USS Lincoln for the :Mission Accomplished" banner.

[Feanorcurufinwe]

2. Will Bush's lies come back to bite him?

[Zero Gravitas]

45. He's told so many

and not one has come back to bite him yet.

[beanball]

3. pResident Bush chief lier.

do all america a favor and take your lying pampared ass back to texASS.

[Skittles]

23. HEY BEANBALL

WITH ALL DUE RESPECT, WHY DO YOU WANT TO TORMENT US DUers IN TEXAS ?????? We've put up with this arogant SOB a LOT LONGER than you have. x(

[MUAD_DIB]

48. Unfortunatly I have to agree with you.

The bastard is a Yankee, blueblood transplant.

He must have been schooled in the Texas drawl. Maybe that's the only thing he is really good at ...besides destrying our country.

[SammyWinstonJack]

51. I don't really care where his lying pampered ass ends up

so long as it ain't in texASS! if it's all the same to you.

[monobrau]

4. Excellent source!

It's great to see this in Air Force times. There is a growing perception among our soldiers that the commander in chief is a punk talking chicken hawk. Imagine reading this in 100+ degree heat while eating an MRE, knowing that this twirp doesn't know a fraction of what our people know about just trying to stay alive and in one piece.

[Kinkistyle]

29. Always figured the flyboys to be the individualistic type.

More of the thinking man's soldier.

[bpilgrim]

5. Animated GIF

more...
http://new.globalfreepress.com/article.pl?sid=03/10/29/0119232

psst... pass the word ;->

peace

[DoYouEverWonder]

6. Damn you're fast and good

BTW: This was posted in GD this afternoon. DU gets the scoop again! As usual, if you want to be the first on your block to know whats going on, DU is the place to go.


GD Forum

[bpilgrim]

12. thanks

:loveya:

i sourced DU at GFP ;->

thank GORE he 'invented' the INTERNET :evilgrin:

:hi:

peace

[intheozone]

15. You're right, I almost forgot,

THANK YOU PRESIDENT GORE!!!!!! :loveya: :loveya: :loveya:

[Robbien]

7. Bush has bullied the Navy to take the blame

After the news conference, a White House spokeswoman said the Lincoln's crew asked the White House to have the sign made. The White House asked a private vendor to produce the sign, and the crew put it up, said the spokeswoman. She said she did not know who paid for the sign.

Later, a Pentagon spokesman called The Associated Press to reiterate that the banner was the crew's idea.

"It truly did signify a mission accomplished for the crew," Navy Cmdr. Conrad Chun said, adding the president's visit marked the end of the ship's 10-month international deployment.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/10/28/national2020EST0815.DTL

[Swede]

18. This jerk of president is beneath contempt.

Where's the personal accountalbility? HOW is he restoring honor to the office?

[pruner]

8. Clark uses a strikingly similar background image for his banners

[bpilgrim]

14. different font and drop shadow

though i'll admit that it is certainly a popular back drop when running for president of the usa ;->

:hi:

peace

[Resistance Is Futile]

34. It's probably stock clipart

[IndianaGreen]

20. Standard banner background for Republican candidates

Me bad! I couldn't resist! The Devil made me say it!

[Pastiche423]

25. You bad!

I love it!

[Dr Fate]

53. Liberals/Democrats should embrace "patriotic" imagery...

...it works- so long as it is classy and not overdone...

...I see no reason why Republicans should have a monopoly on the flag- even radicals like Abbie Hoffman understood this...hell, even Hendrix played the Star Spangled banner, and claimed there was nothing cynical about it...

I like the flag, even from an asthetic POV- I like to think of the flag as what we SHOULD be, what we can potentially be.

(My skull symbol, taken from a H.S. Thompson cover, represents what we are right now!!!)

Ever since I was a kid, I've loved all that stuff- the "Spirit of 76" painting, revolutionary war imagery, eagles, etc. Symbols of American culture, live Jazz, Elvis, or counterculture are important too... It may be corny to some, but it resonates, and these symbols DO hold meaning/power...

[MidwestTransplant]

32. I knew he was too good to be true...

I guess Clark did do it :silly:

[Az]

44. Nope, different flag

Notice on the two that * used that the waves in the blue field are the same. Clark has a completely different flag. The one's * used are the very same image. Same original file. The folds in the flag are like finger prints. Not going to be duplicated.

[leesa]

9. How could ANYONE respect ANYONE in this filthy administration!

Republicans NEVER take responsibility for their actions...and their idiot drone followers never even notice!

[Fovea]

57. But they are the party of personal responsibility.

And everytime I look at the unprecidented cock up they have made of America in only 2 years and change, I hold them personally responsible. And so would a free press, if they ever decide to rejoin the fight to preserve democracy in the U.S.


When historians evaluate this period, I hope they ask what the press did to deserve the first amendment. It appears too much to hope for that the press will ask themselves that question. To paraphrase George B. Shaw, they seem only to have the patriotism they can afford.

The Republicans have a lot of strict interpreters of the constituion. How can they sleep at night knowing how the media, the intel community, and the military is being intimidated by this criminal conspiracy masquerading as a presidency. Bush has deeply damaged every institution that the Republican party held dear for half a century. I cannot imagine how heartbreaking it must be to be a thinking conservative, knowing that this bunch of fascists, who have borrowed every dirty trick from Stalin to Pol Pot, is going to take conservativism back to the halcyon days of the 30's.

What horrible irony for them to realize that the Bush/Cheney/Rummy excesses are going to generate a backlash that results in America becoming 'New Amsterdam.' I suggest N.Y. City take back the name before the 2004 RNC convention, as a pre-emptive strike.

I believe that the winning candidate in 2004 will be the one that promises to make America as free, healthy, well-fed, as diverse, and as well educated as Bush promised to make Iraq.

Of course, we may have to relive the '30's a bit first. Let's remember the wooden stake this time.

[proud patriot]

10. Wow that's the same picture a DUer used earlier

:evilgrin:

[DoYouEverWonder]

11. Yep,

GD Forum

Seems Stephanie made the scoop.

[PartyPooper]

13. Every effing thing Junior does is 'political' and staged

very, very carefully by Karl Rove. And, this banner was no exception! And, don't you dare...ever, ever forget it!

:evilfrown:

[R Hickey]

16. So who made up the 'Jobs and Growth' slogan in the other flag sign?

Did the sailors make up the 'Jobs and Growth' slogan too? Or did some WH hack one day say "How 'bout this time we make up a slogan on our own!"
And someone else would exclaim, "Now that's an original idea, really thinking out of the box!"

[cliss]

17. This was a BIG gaffe!

When I read this earlier today, I realized that the Ole BushMan had really done it this time. A clearly identifiable LIE, which will explode in his face like a pineapple grenade.

I could feel giggles building up in my throat, and I felt giddy as if I had drank very nice champagne.

The liabilities just keep piling up. Keep going!!!

[DrBB]

19. Note the angle, the typeface and the DROP-SHADOW

As a professional Photoshop user, that is unequivocally the same style (in the sense of a set of defined standards for presenting a brand or logo). The thing of using a blown-up photo of a waving flag rather than just printing a flag pattern on the signboard is a distinctive and rather unusual choice. And it's obviously the SAME flag photo, with the stripes artfully angled across rather than parallel to the lines of the sign. It's also the same typeface, though there are some differences in what they've done: they've used a larger font size for the initial letters in "JOBS AND GROWTH," and the color in "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" looks whiter, with crisper aliasing (though those could easily be an artifact of the photography). But the drop shadow? With the same 120° light angle? That's really the thing that marks the resemblance, though it's subtle.

I have no problem debunking things that don't pan out, but this definitely pans out.

This is going to turn out to be a very tawdry lie to have gotten caught in, methinks.

[bpilgrim]

21. thats the way it looks to me as well

:hi:

peace

[BiggJawn]

22. "It wasn't the SEX, it was the LYING..." OK, PROVE it!

You fruggin' ReTHUGlicans spent over 45 megabux to find out that a sitting president tried to weasel out of admitting to cheating on his wife,but it wasn't about the blow job and the world's tastiest cigar.

No, you screamed from the rooftops "It was the LYING!!!". OK, so what about THIS lie? AND all the OTHER lies and half-truths your boy has uttered?

C'mon ReTHUG Murka, it's time to get that Independant Counsel stuff going again. Get Ken Starr out of retirement, spend 45 megabucks and have Steve Buyer bring "Articles of Impeachment" to the Senate (yeah, in my wildest wet-dreams that'd happen)and IMPEACH your boy king for LYING, else you know what?

Do you know what will be clear to all who will see if you DON"T impeach the Chimp's lying ass? Do you?

It was about the Sex.

[DoYouEverWonder]

24. But, but

he wasn't under oath.

Repug rule #69 - A lie is only a lie when you are lying about cheating on your wife under oath.

Repug rule #666 - It's okay to lie about the reasons for starting WWIII because you are doing god's will.

[TacticalPeek]

33. Rule #9 - Sex is ok unless its under oath.

:silly:

[BiggJawn]

42. That was July's Astroturf...

"The president is under no legal obligation to tell the people the truth, unless he's giving sworn testimony"...
Heard THAT one a few times cocerning the LIES we were fed in the SOTU.
Know what we "locker room lawyers" came back with?
Because the SOTU address is a constitutional duty of the president, and he swore an oath when he took the office, he IS "under oath" when discharging the duties of the office of president.

But of course, that fell on deaf ears and meaty brains....

[damnraddem]

26. 'Air Force Times'?

Dubya now has the media directed at the military sniping at him. Maybe it wasn't smart to try to blame it all on the Navy.

Did you see the poll on who one would vote for for president? Dubya was only at about 33%, not far ahead of Clark.

[0007]

27. This lie is gonna rate right up there with the Tawana Brawley lie!

......and it will stay around much longer. I love it.

I laughed my tail off today watching this wonderful press conference.

[LizW]

28. Funny, back in May

The White House was bragging about how great the staging of the carrier event was and completely took credit for everything, including the banner. Remember this article?

http://www.notinourname.net/resources_links/bush_image_may03.htm

"The most elaborate - and criticized - White House event so far was Mr. Bush's speech aboard the Abraham Lincoln announcing the end of major combat in Iraq. White House officials say that a variety of people, including the president, came up with the idea, and that (Scott) Sforza embedded himself on the carrier to make preparations days before Mr. Bush's landing in a flight suit and his early evening speech.

Media strategists noted afterward that Mr. Sforza and his aides had choreographed every aspect of the event, even down to the members of the Lincoln crew arrayed in coordinated shirt colors over Mr. Bush's right shoulder and the 'Mission Accomplished' banner placed to perfectly capture the president and the celebratory two words in a single shot. The speech was specifically timed for what image makers call "magic hour light," which cast a golden glow on Mr. Bush.

'If you looked at the TV picture, you saw there was flattering light on his left cheek and slight shadowing on his right,' Mr. King said. 'It looked great.'"

But now we're supposed to believe the banner was the sailors' idea and that Sforza just helped them out with it?:puke:

[Dr Fate]

30. "BANNERGATE"

!!!!

[symbolman]

31. Here is the BIG lie, it was NEVER MAJOR COMBAT

It was COMBAT Operations -- it's been SCRUBBED on the WHITE HOUSE site and others since then.. revisionism and 1984..

Check it out, we caught this back in August but even the media wants to use the term MAJOR..

it was NEVER in the wording of any titles until soldiers died like flies since then..

here's the link:

http://www.takebackthemedia.com/whitehouselies.html

[Art_from_Ark]

35. Scrubbing the WH web site

Sounds like Winston Smith is on Duhbya's payroll.

[Resistance Is Futile]

36. Huh?

As a point of interest, this image appears to have been Photoshopped. The banner has completely different lighting characteristics and much higher contrast than the carrier it's supposedly attached to. Either the AF times was doing some creative saturation/curves editing or that image of the banner was pasted onto a stock photo of the carrier.

[DrBB]

41. I noticed that too

A little hard to tell because it's so tightly cropped, but it looks to me like an unsharp mask was applied to just the area of the flag. Since that could be done to make the details more apparent, it doesn't really challenge the basic point being made. The banner was on the ship, after all, and other photos make it clear that it was this banner. In fact, the point isn't even in dispute--as the Air Force Times article makes clear:

The White House communications office, well known for the care it takes with the backdrops at Bush speeches, created the “Mission Accomplished” banner in the same style as banners the president uses in other appearances, including one just a week before the carrier appearance in Canton, Ohio. That banner, with the same soft, brush-stroked American flag in the background and the identical typeface, read: “Jobs and Growth.”

[TahitiNut]

37. duplicate

See http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=188592

Due to the number of posts, the significance of the source, and the content of the thread, I'm choosing to leave this duplicate thread unlocked (unless overruled, of course). Please, check diligently for stories already posted before posting to LBN.

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation,
TahitiNut - DU moderator

[DoYouEverWonder]

39. This is not the same

story or link as the one in your post?

The importance of this thread is not so much what was said but where it was said and the fact that the 'official' military news sites are using pics that were first posted by another DUer earlier in the day.



BTW: The same story is also being run on the Navy Times site. Here's the link for that one:


http://www.navytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2346349.php

[robbedvoter]

38. Banner-schmanner, Bush Said "MISHUN ACCOMPLISHED":

"http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/06/20030605-1.html
"I am happy to see you, an so are the long-suffering people of Iraq. America sent you on a mission to remove a grave threat and to liberate an oppressed people, and that mission has been accomplished."
So, it really doesn't matter - he lied anyway. And check out the continuous lies:

"...After the news conference, a White House spokeswoman said the Lincoln's crew asked the White House to have the sign made. The White House asked a private vendor to produce the sign, and the crew put it up, said the spokeswoman. She said she did not know who paid for the sign.
Later, a Pentagon spokesman called The Associated Press to reiterate that the banner was the crew's idea.
"It truly did signify a mission accomplished for the crew," Navy Cmdr. Conrad Chun said, adding the president's visit marked the end of the ship's 10-month international deployment..."
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apwashington_story.asp?category=1151&slug=Bush%20Mission%20Accomplished
Wasn't that a happy coincidence?
Because bush used thes

[lumpy]

40. It really doesn't matter who the hell

made the banner. The fake carrier pilot fraud was just doing another publicity stunt to try to pump up his idiotic image.

[DemonFighterLives]

43. And what a stupid needless lie

When all he had to do was tell the truth that, yeah, the mission accomplished thingy was premature. Then go on with his standard, we are making progress and they hate our freedoms lines. Add a few 9/11's and terra and he would have slipped by.

[Bandit]

46. It's not about sex ~ It's about lying

Oh did GOP say that. Well that is so "ninties". Clinton Lowered the Bar so now everything is okay.

[robbedvoter]

47. LISTEN TO W SAY: "MISHUN ACCOMPLISHED" HERE:

http://bartcopnation.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=2&topic_id=253712&mesg_id=253712&page=
As long as he said it himseld, why are we even talking about a stupid banner?
The original question was: Why did you declare "Mishun Accomplished prematurely? Here's the transcript:

"
TRANSCRIPT OF BUSH'S STATEMENT RE: BANNER

"QUESTION: Mr. President, if I may take you back to May 1st, when you stood on the USS Lincoln under a huge banner that said, "Mission Accomplished," at that time, you declared major combat operations were over. But since that time there have been over 1,000 wounded, many of them amputees who are recovering at Walter Reed, 217 killed in action since that date.

Will you acknowledge now that you were premature in making those remarks?

BUSH: I think you ought to look at my speech. I said Iraq's a dangerous place, got hard work to do, there's still more to be done.

And we had just come off a very successful military operation. I was there to thank the troops.

The "Mission Accomplished" sign, of course, was put up by the members of the USS Abraham Lincoln saying that their mission was accomplished. I know it was attributed somehow to some ingenious advance man from staff. They weren't that ingenious, by the way.

But my statement was a clear statement, basically recognizing that this phase of the war for Iraq was over, and there was a lot of dangerous work."

[David Zephyr]

49. Kick.

Keep this story alive.

[Malva Zebrina]

50. Does this man, aged and matured into his middle life fifties have any idea

of what a "punk" is? I think not. But nevertheless he is a PUNK. He has been used to being given everything all of his life, without ever having to earn a damn thing--and think about it--he has gotten away with it for more than fifty years!!! He has been sliding down the water slide of the Bush name for years--and taking his frump with him and demands that he be adored ---or ELSE.! And here he is, way over his pointed little pin head, pretending he is in a leader of something in war--and thousands have died becuase of his incompetency--does he care? Does he understand what a human being is and what life is? Does he care--is that too intellectual a reflection for him? Why should he? He has never had to care all of his life.

[DemonFighterLives]

52. Now all over the news

And the fact that more have been killed in the quagmire since his dress up routine than during the pre-banner war.

[David Zephyr]

54. Kick.

:kick:

[Stephanie]

55. Is it on the news again today? Not near a TV

WOO HOOO! Bannergate! Atomic Cat made the big find when he/she posted that graphic of the identical flag banners.

[imax2268]

56. Is he just trying to piss off the military now or what...?

or what...I noticed that the banner looked very similar in design and used a similar font when I saw it...I have seen that before...

When I heard this today about it being the sailors idea in making it...my jaw hit the floor...a lie doesn't get anymore blatant than that...

I can't believe that the WH would have the gall to say that it was all the sailors idea...what a bunch of marooons in Washington...

Guess he won't be looking for a lot of votes from Navy families...!

[DoYouEverWonder]

58. W must have a devious plan up his sleeve

to cancel the election. That is all I can figure because he doesn't seem to give a damn if he po's everyone in this country. Reminds me of the way this misadministration behaved before 9-11. It was like they were trying to piss off the rest of the world in order to get someone to attack us on purpose.