Analysis: Picture Worth A Thousand Words

Jimmy Carter knows how not to work the media. He's been out of the limelight ever since his appearance at Brandeis University to talk about his book with controversial comments in his book Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid to aspiring jewish politicians at that ivy league college. The parting shots or lack thereof were dignified though. For others media has been less merciful including their beloved Bush.

During the last days of lame duck 43rd president of the United States some of the expressions were priceless. Of course the Monkey mouth Bush was pretty popular among his detractors. But mostly his picture with a finger pointing in the air, hand gesture that is totally out of place, and other similar photographs started to show up approximately during the last two years of his presidency.

For Obama on the other hand, its little bit of a stretch to see unflattering pictures with finger stretched out or face making the letter O to cheer the crowd up or something like that have started to show up more and more often. So why is that significant you ask.

In the American culture people usually don't talk much with their hands. Italians and some other Europeans do that. Of course Arabs and pretty much all Muslims do talk with their hands slightly less than they do otherwise. Cultures are different and in some places it is acceptable and perfectly normal to use hands and gestures while in others it is not. In America it's considered rather rude to flail your hand and point fingers while talking because everything has a name and when you talk you are expected to be precise by using language instead of gestures. If you want to give somebody direction in Afghanistan you would see people pointing to a direction while they tell you where to go, but not here because you are expected to be more precise. That is why the question: why are these pictures showing up and why now.

Of course media is well aware of this little idiosyncrasy about the hand gestures and they play it to the hilt to their advantage. If you are a careful observer you may have noticed that every time they want to show anybody that they talk negative about they have a pictures with some hand movement in place. Curiously enough what Arab or Muslim politician is there that they don't talk negative about since its their favorite pastime. Pictures of Muqtada-Al-Sadr with his finger in the air is embedded in our psyche. Iranian president always shows up with hands in the air, finger pointing everywhere. Still other times he is shown with hand stretched that looks like he is saluting somebody but its not exactly too becoming or flattering for him.

All of that is part of the propaganda and the media's war against anybody they dislike. But why would anybody dislike Obama. He is charming, dashing, eloquent, and very leaderlike. Yet, so early and so quickly, the charm has worn off?, The eloquence has given way to lingering questions? The leadership is being questioned? He almost split GOP in the middle during the last session with them. If he can do few more of those question/answer sessions maybe it will help change the tone of the pictures that have started to show up lately.