Posted on 12/20/2007 8:59:16 AM PST by Travis McGee
"THE TODAY SHOW"
MEREDITH VIEIRA: Let's talk about this Christmas ad, because it comes after you have taken some hits from the critics, first for calling yourself a Christian leader, then for questioning whether Mormons believe Christ and the devil were brothers, something you did apologize for.
Now in this ad you are say people should be celebrating the birth of Christ while the shape of a cross appears to take shape behind you. And that has led some to say that this is another overt religious appeal to voters. What do you say about this ad and about those criticisms?
MIKE HUCKABEE: That floating cross is a bookshelf, Meredith. We were all amused -- the production crew I think probably more than anyone, who put the spot together.
VIEIRA: So you didn't see that image when you put the spot together, that it might be confused?
HUCKABEE: Absolutely not.
These are movie camera "tracking dollies."
There are two reasons to use tracking dollies when directing a film. The most basic use is when following a moving subject and keeping them in the same plane. The classic use is to follow a walking actor in profile.
The other use of the tracking dolly is to move the background in a controlled way, while keeping the foreground subject in one place by simultaneiously tracking and panning the camera.
That is how the Huckabee team contrived and executed the shot, in order to move the glowing white (spotlighted) shelf/cross from the left side of the shot to behind Huckabee's head, in exactly the 30 seconds of the ad.
The use of the tracking dolly is the smoking gun, the proof that the moving cross effect was deliberate, and that Huckabee is lying about it being an unnoticed coincidence.
They didn't just come out and "find" that a tracking dolly had magically appeared on the set, and decide, "Aw shucks, why don't we stick the camera on this here funny contraption, and slide it from left to right while aiming at Mike's head, just for the heck of it."
Every aspect of this political advertisement was deliberate, down to the placement of the three ornaments on the glowing white spotlighted empty shelf.
The proof that the moving cross effect was deliberate, is the use of the tracking dolly to move the cross in the background in a perfectly controlled way.
I'm going to guess that Hannity's show ends up declaring this a non-starter.
And youre down for ‘blinded by hate’..
Ah, the “hate” card, thrown out by conservatives who’ve run out of arguments about as often as the race card is by liberals, and with about as much validity.
Face it, Huckabee thinks he has the chops to be the ruler of the free world, but he can’t even make a simple Christmas commercial without his own mouth helping the MSM to make a media circus about it. If this is how he handles a media inquiry into the background of an ad, what will happens when a really important issue comes along? The guy’s just not ready for prime time.
Not too sharp, are ya’?
Are you saying I’m a liar, if I say it looked liked bookshelves to me?
I think it actually IS a bookshelf.
I'd be ashamed of lying about using the cross of our Lord for pandering. After all this is over Huck has a real future in the reconstituted episcopalian church. They don't care if you lie about that "Cross" crap either.
A few years back folks on this board had many discussions about a President who seemed to have a compulsion to lie about things even when the truth would have been perfectly okay and acceptable. This little incident is reminiscent of those days, and just so... Clintonesque...
However, I do believe it's time to just note it for reference, and move on to other matters.
You cant argue with someone who sees a bookshelf and yells *cross!!!*
I’ve made it clear that my point has nothing to do with either a bookshelf or a cross, but is, rather, about Huckabee’s handling of this controversy that didn’t need to be one. That this issue is still being talked about on the news this morning, four days on, is ample proof that Huckabee can’t handle himself with the press.
If he gets the nomination, the MSM will chew him up and spit out the carcass long before next November, and all indications are that Huckabee, in his ineptitude, will hand them the knife and fork to do it.
How completely disingenuous of you, the 'controversy' is weather or not a book shelf was a cross. The think had decorations on in!
If he gets the nomination, the MSM will chew him up and spit out the carcass
Of course when the GOP is pre-chewing it for them it always helps..
Nice try at redefining the issue, but it won’t work. Read my first post on this thread, #67. The issue for me isn’t the cross/bookcase, it’s the denial.
Huckabee is pathetic with the press. Pathetic. In the last week Obama had a controversy over hard drug use which could have tanked his candidacy had he been as ham-handed with the press as Huckabee. Instead, Obama deftly defused a dangerous situation by basically saying, “Yeah, it happened, so what?” That’s how a candidate deals with controversy—openly, honestly and head on, if he wishes to survive it.
Granted, a Democrat will always be treated better by the press than a Republican, but compared to heavy drug use, the cross incident is a non-story. Or at least it would have been if Huckabee hadn’t fueled the controversy by denying the obvious.
As for GOPers criticizing Huckabee, he has thrown his hat into the ring, and he is fair game. This is a political campaign, not a church potluck. No one gets special treatment and nothing is off limits. Now, not during the general election, is the time to vet candidates and get their negatives into the open. If your candidate doesn’t stand up well to that process, and he doesn’t, that’s his problem, not mine.
You may be right about him not knowing about the appearance of a “cross-like” image BEFORE the ad aired. But you must admit that AFTER he saw the ad himself and saw the obvious imagery, his response to the accusations was pretty lame and far-fetched. The appearance of the cross is pretty obvious (at least, to me).
My point is....what we need most in a candidate right now is elect-a-bility. Huck’s already got the hard-left anti-Christians (which is most Democrat supporters) against him due to the mere fact that he IS a Christian. Now, with his response to this ad, he’s turned a good number of Christians/conservatives against him as well. They just don’t feel they can trust him any more.
All I’m saying is.....his response to the accusations re: his ad was not very bright. That alone may not make him unelectable. But there are other issues or negatives re: Huck’s policies that could. He really should have (and could have) handled this much better.
Still bet he thought it was a bookshelf ~ not all of us see this stuff the same way you do. Has to do with the way our brains work.
“Nice try at redefining the issue, but it won’t work. Read my first post on this thread, #67. The issue for me isn’t the cross/bookcase, it’s the denial.”
lol you make up an issue out of thin air *based on people mistaking a bookcase for a cross* and then ignore the foundation of your whole argument..
Great lets get Obama to switch parties, can you imagine the damage he would do to illary with the GOP behind him.... Sheesh..
And what candidate are you campaigning for, again, as you focus on tearing down another?
I don’t think anyone “mistook” the bookcase for a cross. Yes, it’s clearly a bookcase. But it’s a bookcase deliberately framed and highlighted to appear like a floating glowing cross panning slowly across the film.
It appears obviously contrived to me. Which isn’t a problem. It’s his lying about it so as to appear a hapless victim of an overzealous press that totally turns me off.
He’s basically trying to create a “war on Christmas” controversy by sticking this in there, and then claiming that all the people who obviously see it are paranoid and delusional and out to take the Christ out of Christmas. I personally consider the -real- issue too important to condone seeing it manipulated for rank political gain like this, and hell, I’m agnostic.
Qwinn
Dolly shot or not, the fact remains: it’s a friggin bookshelf.
Yes, it’s a bookshelf that looks like a cross. But Huckabee never denied the bookshelf looks like a cross. Never.
What Huck did is one of two things — first, he pointed out the obvious fact that the “cross” is in fact a bookshelf. Of course it is. Where is the lie there?
And secondly he poked fun at the suggestion that a bookshelf that looks like a cross is supposed to be some kind of subliminal message, e.g. by kidding that if you play the ad backwards it says “Paul is dead, Paul is dead.”
These are brilliant replies to stupid questions about the ad. It’s a Christmas ad. He says the word “Christ’s birth” in the ad. Where is the denial of a Christian message here? He’s about as forward about it as you can be. So the mainstream media makes a big deal of the fact that a bookshelf kinda looks like a cross? It’s a red herring. And smart guy that he is, Huck called them out on it. Good for him.
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