Don't Do This

Got an email forwarded to me today entitled "Dumb and Dumber" showing the President and his wife holding the wrong hand over the wrong side for the Pledge of Alliegance. 

I was immediately suspicious -- 'cause -- folks, come on.  These people aren't "dumb".  You don't get to be President of the United States and be dumb.  You can't get there.  And yes, I am fully aware that this applies to George W. Bush as well -- which would send howls of protest up from those on the left.

Just because you disagree with a person's worldview doesn't mean they're dumb.  And, of course, intelligent people with incorrect worldviews are the most dangerous of all.

Anyway, I was skeptical I had to check it out and if I found it not to be true, I had to debunk it.  We try not to pass along instructions to believe here at the Clue Batting Cage and we humbly suggest everyone do the same.

First thing I thought was … this could be a mirror image. It’s easy to flip a picture and reverse left for right and right for left.

The person who started this anticipated that, and pointed out that their wedding rings were on the hand over the heart, meaning it WAS their left hands and not a mirror image. Plus it made a point of pointing out that the buttons on Barack’s jacket are on the correct side, which is another thing I looked at. Well … It’s pretty obvious that the button problem was “corrected” in photoshop and the photoshopper was not a professional. You can see the discoloration and change in pixel pattern around the buttons and holes. The bottom button hole has a large dark rectangle round it. They simply copied and pasted from the other side and maybe softened the edges of the rectangle. I’ve done that many times myself … well, not on button holes ;-) The buttons themselves look horrible.  That was probably done via a cloning tool.

The rings … I would almost lay money that Michelle has a nicer ring than that. Hers looks sloppy. His looks convincing enough.

I went google searching for a snopes article on it, but couldn’t find one in the avalanche of links. But when I searched for Michelle Obama’s wedding ring to compare, I accidentally ran across the snopes article.

The original picture is there in the article as well.

What made me suspicious was you don’t get to this level by being that dumb about basic protocol like that – plus … they have handlers.

Naturally, I don’t do this out of any love for the Obamas, but out of love for the truth and fairness. It does us no good to use the same tactics they use to discredit us … to discredit them. We have to remain honest. So when I see stuff like this I’m suspicious about, I tend to check it out.

There's nothing worse than getting caught with your pants down on something like this.  To be called on something you have said that isn't true discredits you, even if you didn't know it wasn't true.  It's very difficult to recover from such a position in an argument.  Read.  Get your facts straight.  Question even your own biases.  And arrive at the truth.

As Glenn Beck repeats ad nauseum (and I mean that in a good way), we must remember who we are, and this is what he means. Fair and honest, decent people. If the truth is on your side, you will win people over with your reputation for these things. People can tell the difference between a rabid ideologue and a thoughtful, fair, honest person.