The Dueling Flickr Feeds Of Barack Obama And Mitt Romney

by Ana Marie Cox And Jason Linkins

The Annotated White House Flickr Feed returns with a special Election 2012 edition. Here are The Guardian’s Ana Marie Cox and Huffington Post political reporter Jason Linkins to explain the politics behind the pictures. How much time does “examine some corn” take up in the President’s daily schedule? What scary story is Bill Clinton about to tell? Who enjoys posing for pictures more: Joe Biden or Bo? And how does the White House’s photostream compare with Mitt Romney’s?

Ana Marie: So, while we were away, Pete Souza got a whole new trope, it seems.

Jason: REFLECTIONS.

Ana Marie: Yep! I already found some more.

Ana Marie: Do you notice how perfectly normal it feels that Tim Geithner has an extra head growing out of his hand?

Jason: I like this one, because Tim Geithner is as upside-down as so many Americans are with their home loans.

Ana Marie: I guess you put two Nobel Peace Prize winners in the same room and it can get awkward. “Hey, let’s all pet the dog. Don’t make this weird.”

Jason: Wow. Imagine how weird it would be if they invited the entire EU to hang out, too. Or Kissinger?

Ana Marie: The dog would just bark and howl at Kissinger, sensing the presence of evil.

Ana Marie: Well, that is just too cute for words.

Jason: Adorable.

Ana Marie: I am defeated. Maybe leave the caption blank? Or just [INSERT QUIP ABOUT ANOTHER PORTRAIT OF LINCOLN.]

Jason: Our work is done, here.

Ana Marie: Now she is just showing off. Also: I am a little scared now?

Jason: The only forearm in DC that’s better sculpted than FLOTUS’ is “The Awakening.”

Ana Marie: I’m thinking that she should actually fight crime or something. Forget First Lady — STOP BAD GUYS.

Jason: Well, depending on how things turn out…

Ana Marie: So, this raises an interesting question. How do you tell your boss, the President, that he is SERIOUSLY all up in your personal space? “No, I’m fine, sir… just let me draw my legs up closer to my huddled form here…”

Jason: I’m sure she was like, “Oh, yes. Definitely take this picture, Pete Souza.”

Ana Marie: “Yes, this is the one my parents will want to frame.”

Ana Marie: Yep. Here’s the president. Holding some corn.

Jason: I guess in Iowa, this is what you do instead of holding babies? (Unless those babies make ethanol!)

Ana Marie: “Examine some corn,” is probably not one of those things that appear on the president’s daily schedule. But it is like holding a baby. You have to feign interest in a similar way.

Jason: “Oh, hey. Let me hold that for you.”

Ana Marie: “Yup. Corn. That’s what we have here.”

Jason: “I’m gonna want to remember that day I held some corn, for some reason.”

Jason: Looking at this, it’s hard to believe that Michael Lewis was deemed to be not good enough to start in the Presidential pick-up game.

Ana Marie: Don’t show THAT pic to Jay-Z. Or anyone, really.

Jason: I’m sure he was like, “Definitely take this picture, Pete Souza.”

Ana Marie: Pete Souza doing the frame thing.

Jason: REMEMBER ALL OF OUR OLD JOKES ABOUT PETE SOUZA FRAMING STUFF, BECAUSE IF YOU DO, THIS IS FUNNY, OKAY?

Ana Marie: AWKWARD CLASS PHOTO

Ana Marie: It looks like Bill Clinton is about to go tell a scary story. (Which, come to think of it, is his role in the campaign.)

Jason: Pete Souza’s camera wants to fuck Bill Clinton so hard, you can tell.

Ana Marie: Well, like most of us.

Ana Marie: I like this because LeBron looks legitimately psyched.

Jason: Michelle is probably whispering in his ear, “This better not cost us Ohio.”

Ana Marie: THIS IS THE PRESIDENT’S DOG, NOT ON TOP OF A CAR. #neverforget

Jason: You are with us in our hearts, Seamus!

Ana Marie: The caption is especially nice, though: “Bo, the Obama family dog, poses for a photo.” I’m willing to bet Bo does not know he is posing for a photo.

Jason: The War Horse never knew he was in a movie about a War Horse.

Ana Marie: To Maru, the rest of the world is a box he is trying to escape from.

Jason: Rafalca doesn’t know that other horses don’t all spend their lives being tortured into performing ballet.

Ana Marie: Biden thinks everyone is vice president.

Ana Marie: NO SERIOUSLY, GUYS, HE IS TOTALLY ON THE PHONE WITH BIBI NETANYAHU, TRUST US.

Jason: Pete Souza is trolling the Washington Free Beacon like a boss!

Ana Marie: It is impossible that a child has done anything to deserve that haircut.

Jason: YOU ARE MY ONLY FRIEND NOW, BABY.

Ana Marie: BABY IS UNAWARE OF LIBYAN FUCK UP.

Ana Marie: “Okay, who had malarkey in the drinking game?”

Jason: The big disappointment is that he’s watching CNN.

Ana Marie: Yeah, WTF, don’t they get Al Jazeera on Air Force One? At least he has that totally luxurious, padded, remote control for his teevee.

Jason: Oh, yeah, what is that?

It has to be painful to watch those dial ratings. “OMG, Biden is crushing it, but I’ve no idea why! Wait, now he’s not crushing it? WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO GLEAN FROM THIS?”

Ana Marie: No, I am willing to bet that they give about zero fucks to the dial test. That is not the expression of someone following the dial test. That’s the expression of someone who knows they fucked up in Benghazi and is just hoping the topic doesn’t come up again.

Jason: LOL, it’s gonna. Maybe this is the one of the last times we’ll do the Obama White House Flickr Feed? Think about that.

Ana Marie: Really? I’m not totally sure.

Jason: Maybe we should see if we’re any good at annotating the Romney Flickr feed ?

Ana Marie: Okay…

Ana Marie: The semiotics of how “Don’t bill me, bro” made it onto a Romney campaign sign could keep a Brown undergrad busy for years.

Jason: I think that the Romney/Ryan campaign should make Peter Berg happy and just start using “I HATE MY PARENTS’ BASEMENT” instead of “CLEAR EYES FULL HEARTS CAN’T LOSE.”

Ana Marie: This photostream is just adorable in its absolute junior varsityness. I don’t even think this photo is actually in focus. (INSERT ROMNEY POLICY POSITION JOKE HERE.)

Jason: “You’re gonna miss me when I’m gone, you fucks!” — email we just received from Pete Souza

Ana Marie: lkdsjfklds

Jason: Is that supposed to be a sentence? “We love Romney, for women, Romney/Ryan!”

Ana Marie: And this, I think, is exactly what you thought a students for Romney group shot would look like. Going to go play flip cup at Señor Frog’s right after this.

Jason: This sentence is, “Romney/Ryan 2012: we can’t afford it.” Given the state of their student loans, they probably can’t.

Ana Marie: I think every single one of these people beat me up in high school.

Jason: At least these kids will destroy Thought Catalog.

Ana Marie: Dane Cook for Romney, everyone. YEAH THAT GUY, WANNA BE LIKE HIM. Last seen putting a roofie in your drink.

Jason: In fairness, it looks like he also roofied his own drink.

Ana Marie: OMG, here they are again!

Jason: No one is actually on the phone with a voter here.

Ana Marie: No, they are all calling friends. “YO, I AM GONNA TOTALLY BE ON THE INTERNET.”

Ana Marie: Bad news and good news. The bad news: this is a still from that dog’s hostage video.

Jason: What’s the good news?

Ana Marie: Well, it seems we seamlessly made it to a Romney Flickr commentary.

Jason: Insert reminder of fair use for satire. But yes, Mitt Romney, congrats, you have created your first job!

Ana Marie: Of course, we don’t get paid. On the plus side, Choire is not looking for any thirteen-year-old Chinese kids to do this.

Jason: Don’t give him any ideas. Some of those Chinese kids were just THE WORST with complaints about how we totally stopped doing this for two years.

Ana Marie: Seriously, though, the Romney feed is a rich vein of pictures for that possible future.

Jason: And if you want a picture of that future, The Awl readers, just imagine Choire Sicha going “aksdfjkafdgjadljasdfjklsd!!!!” in your face FOREVER.

Let’s take a moment today, on this third anniversary of the amazing “Balloon Boy” hoax, to remember that, as Twitter user pourmecoffee says, “if it’s on TV, it’s important!” Also on this day in history, it is the 229th anniversary of man’s first ride in a balloon, which probably should have tipped us all off in the first place. [Via]

Never before in American History has so much hinged on a single debate. Tomorrow, the citizens who are not watching “game three” of televised baseball will be spellbound for 90 minutes as the wounded, bleeding president and the strong, perfect challenger take pre-selected questions from a group of pre-selected voters of statistically varied age, color and gender. Literally every minute of this brutal slugfest will be a “game changer,” and the potential outcomes could alter not only the small point spread between the candidates’ Wednesday polling, but also the very future of humankind.

The possibilities include “one or the other candidate being perceived as the winner” to … well, that is the main possibility. But there is the possibility of unexpected outcomes, too — outcomes more terrifying than any Halloween party.

• In an attempt to evade a question about Libya, Barack Obama discloses that alien space monsters have lived on Earth for 60 years, and are all employed by corporate software giant Oracle.
• As the assembled voters gasp in horror, Mitt Romney pulls off his full-head human face mask to reveal that he, too, is an alien, because his father was born in Mexico. (The real Mitt is ever so slightly more orange in skin tone than the mask.)
• An attractive 18-year-old female voter asks the candidates whether they wear “briefs or boxers.” Mitt Romney answers with a slow, lascivious and utterly silent strip tease, revealing to millions of Americans that he wears a “classic thong” from CafePress.com featuring a LOLcat waving a tiny machine gun. EKGs hooked up to a group of CNN viewers immediately reveal that Romney is now seen as the “natural military leader” in the race.
• The candidates engage in a fast-paced contest of sports trivia that drags on for an unprecedented 37 minutes, while Candy Crowley howls in a sustained rage.
• Thanks to a series of mistakes by Romney and Obama’s “body men,” neither candidate is released from the “cone of silence,” resulting in America’s first presidential debate performed entirely in American Sign Language.
• In a bold appeal to moderate and women voters, Romney performs an abortion on a surprised member of the audience, 57-year-old laid-off autoworker Bill “Sockeye” Sanders.
• Obama does slightly better than last time, making his landslide re-election “100% completely inevitable, game over, fuggedaboutit,” according to Andrew Sullivan and/or David Gergen.

“Those are very questionable. Some of them are blogs.”
 — Just how reliable are those “six independent studies” that vouch for Mitt Romney’s tax plan?

“And Court Street, where it passed through Carroll Gardens and Cobble Hill, was the only Brooklyn, really — north was Brooklyn Heights, south was the harbor, and the rest, everything east of the Gowanus Canal (the only body of water in the world, Minna would crack each and every time we drove over it, that was 90 percent guns) apart from small outposts of civilization in Park Slope and Windsor Terrace, was an unspeakable barbarian tumult.”
 — Last week, a team of eager scientists at the NYU’s Polytechnic Institute launched a solar-powered remote-control robot equipped with underwater cameras and sensors to measure the water’s chemical make-up. Photos and data will be uploaded to website everyone can look at, and they’re hoping to crowd-source observation and analysis. But, really, all they had to do was ask Jonathan Lethem. He knows what’s in the canal.

If it’s the middle of October it is time for an annual reminder of just how vile and unsanitary the British people are. Also, they don’t wash their hands.

“Americans Get Fatter, Drunker”

On Friday night Jamey Johnson showed up on “Late Show With David Letterman” to perform this Hank Cochran classic, and wow, was it ever beautiful.

“The sponsorship transcended sports and entertainment into Pop Culture, hitting new consumers that Red Bull does not usually capture, and on a global scale. The value for Red Bull is in the tens of millions of dollars of global exposure, and Red Bull Stratos will continue to be talked about and passed along socially for a very long time.”
 — A marketing executive is happy that skydiving daredevil Felix Baumgartner did not plummet to his death yesterday.

It’s a hopping Monday, between #YOLO Ono and Stevie Nicks headlining the Elton John AIDS Foundation benefit and David Mitchell appearing at PowerHouse AND LOTS MORE, from a staged Moby Dick (with Matthew Broderick!) to Sherman Alexie at the Barnes & Noble Union Square tonight!