pudge's Journal: LooneyTubes

So, this guy purports to show that the White House is trying to censor history by blacking out the "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" banner in the May 1, 2003 video posted on whitehouse.gov.

The video on YouTube is almost convincing, if you are not playing close attention. He says the black bar at the bottom is covering up something at the top: you see, he says, the White House shifted the movie up, to get rid of the banner, and left a black bar at the bottom.

But I happened to notice that the black bar at the bottom is about the same size as the CNN graphics crawl. And I also noticed that if you shifted the movie down to where he says it would be, that would make for some very odd TV cropping.

So I went to the page, and I looked at the May 1 video. It shows what he said. Then I clicked on the other May 1 video. And the May 2 video. And May 3, May 4, May 5, and two on May 6. I skipped up to May 31. They ALL have the same black bar. Every single one I clicked on.

Sorry, there's no Orwellian conspiracy here. They were simply blacking out the CNN graphics.

Not that I should need to tell the readers of this space, but do not just accept what people tell you. Think. Question. We now know this story was wrong after viewing just a few other videos on whitehouse.org, although I have no reason to think the Democratic activist who created and posted the video was intentionally deceptive.

But I heard another story today about a guy who has a message left on his answering machine saying he cannot legally vote in Virginia, because he is registered in NY. But how do we know this message was left by a Republican, and not by a Democrat? Even assuming the target was a Democrat (which we don't know from the stories), this message could have been left on his answering machine by a Democrat trying to make Republicans look bad.

Look at the evidence, which is scant: all we have is the message, not who sent it. We know both sides are not above dirty tricks. What is more likely: faking a call to make it look like a Republican did it, which is not a crime but is very dirty, or a Republican actually doing it, which might be a crime, and leaving evidence of that potential crime on the answering machine? Both are possible, of course, but if I had to wager, I'd wager it wasn't a Republican. Hell, maybe Timothy Daly, the target himself, left it.

I am not saying the Democrats or Daly did it. I am saying it is stupid to assume the Republicans did it, just like it was stupid of this guy in Minnesota to assume the White House was trying to hide the "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" banner from a video.

Update: Mike McIntee, the guy who posted this deceptive video, deleted my comments off the YouTube page, pointing out his error. So, I no longer believe he was simply lazy, I now believe, due to his coverup, that he was being intentionally deceptive all along. Funny that all these people think the supposed White House video manipulation was "Orwellian," when what is Orwellian is McIntee's manipulative claim.

Update: He deleted my followup comments and has now made comments moderated. "We must not let people know that I am lying!!!"

But they aren't denying it...

[jdavidb]

It would make more sense if the White House was currently claiming that they never proclaimed "Mission Accomplished." Ordinarily, when people try to hide something, they deny it.

This sounds very similar to folks who think all Bible translations except the KJV are denying the deity of Christ because they followed some manuscripts that occasionally omit the word "God" in some place where it isn't necessary for context, even though those same translations elsewhere proclaim the same docrines they are allege

Lower Third

[robi2106]

that space is where something called a "lower third" exists. Same as what you mentioned. Agency logo, news ticker, etc.

jason

Re:

[robi2106]

Oh and I left comments to that effect as well.

jason

Re:

[pudge]

Either your comments were deleted, or are being moderated and will not be approved.

Re:

[robi2106]

Yep. Looks like it. Heh. Thanks for the open discussion forum buddy.

jason

double posted

[robi2106]

looks like I accidentally double posted to your youtube page. Feel free to delete one or the other to eliminate dupe.

jason

Angles of picture and video

[John M W 321]

In Mr. McIntee's video, he shows the White House video, and pulls it aside to show a still picture taken the same day. The still picture has the "Mission Accomplished" banner. But notice by what is directly behind Bush's head, that the still picture is taken from a different angle than the video (or is a different scene, but let's not get too paranoid). So, the picture does not demonstrate that the video contained the banner, since the picture is not from the video.

Now, Mr. Nandor has shown that bottom

Re:

[pudge]

So it is not plausible that the _black bar_ is evidence of a shift of the video. But neither do we know whether the White House video was edited, independent of the existence of the black bar.

Sure, but there is no evidence whatsoever of any editing beyond the black bars (which as shown, are also not evidence).

It is entirely plausible that the White House video is edited from a high resolution version having a black bar and the "Mission Accomplished" banner, to give a low resolution version with a black bar

My, Oh my...

[dexterpexter]

Regardless of whether or not it was cropped, if the discussion is indeed moderated (I don't comment there to know one way or another) then I find it amusing that one who purports to be against revisionism would be deleting comments that don't fit his world view (This YouTuber would perhaps "rather not have [us] remember [history] the way it was?"), and is now seeking to censor those critics by moderating the discussion, instead of taking the time to respond to those critical comments thoughtfully.

I highly r

Speaking of revisions... ;)

[dexterpexter]

Pudge, although you linked it properly it ultimately doesn't matter, I think that you meant whitehouse.gov in your text, not whitehouse.com. Although now a People Search page apparently (I just checked so that you wouldn't have to), I remember once making that linkage mistake once with some...erm...interesting NSFW consequences. :)

Re:

[pudge]

Ha! Thanks. :-)

Re:

[dexterpexter]

I was checking out YouTube tonight and happened upon your video. Nice job! I feel that your response is very appropriate.

I wish that it could appear as a video response under the referenced video, as it may have served a larger population of unfortunate folks who click his video and believe it at face value. However, looking at your viewing numbers and honors, yours certainly has an audience.

Re:

[robi2106]

And I haven't even been using my zombie accounts to click thousands of tiems to bump up the rating and views. :-)

Ok, I don't have thousands of zombie accounts. But that will now fuel some paranoia for some people.

jason