The eagle-eyed mistress of… well, of getting drunk alone and yelling at the TV, I guess. Whatever she’s mistress of, Ann Althouse has spotted some deeply nefarious doings by the ever shrewish and threatening Hitlery Clinton campaign. In the much noted 3AM ad, the innocent lad who’s fortunes are left in the able hands of Sen. Clinton (or else!) is wearing pajamas with a dark secret!
[I am foamingly outraged about] “NIG” isolated on a sleeping child’s shoulder in an ad intended to create doubts about a black man’s ability to take an urgent phone call at 3 a.m., an ad authorized by a candidate who has already heard accusations that her campaign is slipping racial material into its attacks on her opponent.
This is either a revolting outrage or shocking incompetence.
Shocking indeed! What candidate can survive the inextricable linkage between a sleeping child’s pajamas and part of a bad word? Her readers, shallow dupes, are suspicious:
IN THE COMMENTS: Some controversy, of course. I know this is hard to take. But let me front page this one, from Mortimer Brezny, who is responding to a commenter who said: “[F]or subliminal messaging to be effective, I think it has to be intelligible. In this case, you really have to fill in the dots (reconstruct the right-half of the G) to make it so. If it had said NIC, would there be an issue, because you could imagine C => G?”
Indeed there would, Mortimer’s wise interlocutor. Obama is a known smoker, and if there’s one thing America can tolerate less than a dark-skinned President, it’s one who is insufficiently conscientious about his cardiovascular health. “NIC”, short for “Nicotine”, would be a heavy subliminal storm for the Obama camp to weather.
I fear, though, that we must reach an even more shocking conclusion: the letters on the Pajamas — if correctly reconstructed — spell the word “Onion”, as in the troubled, unreliable bully so familiar to America through his strife-filled appearances in the beloved comic strip Curtis. America, Hillary Clinton appears to be saying, do you want this man to be your next president?
“Forget stoopid Iran, President “Onion”! Let’s engage in anodyne pranks intended to suggest juvenile delinquency to easily terrified geriatric newspaper consumers!”
(via)
… Althouse, dizzy from the stereo ping-pong of the voices in her head, continues to bravely follow the trail:
Wouldn’t they notice the lettering and freeze frame it to make sure it doesn’t say anything that might be used to hurt the candidate? And once you do that and try to read it, aren’t you going to see “NIG”?
No, and no. It says “Onion”.
Now, try to imagine the scenario at this point.
Scenario #1: They feel a little guilty, but they know their candidate is desperate, and they think they might stimulate the anti-Obama vote and decide to run with it. If anyone tries to talk about it, we’ll trash them. They’re crazy!
Yes indeed, Ann. They are out to get you!
March 1, 2008 at 5:52 pm
After the Jesse Helms ad where they had a guy strangling a letter that turned into Gantt’s head, I can see where she’s coming from.
Doesn’t mean she’s right.
(By the way, that is a G. You can see it repeated elsewhere in the pattern)
March 1, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Clearly, it’s an acronym for what the kids used to write on the walls in Detroit: Nugent is God.
March 1, 2008 at 6:00 pm
(By the way, that is a G. You can see it repeated elsewhere in the pattern)
Well, right, the jammies say “good night”. What is at issue is the devilish subtext.
March 1, 2008 at 6:05 pm
Well, right, the jammies say “good night”. What is at issue is the devilish subtext.
And I agree with you.
Such impudence can only be solved in one way.
If you are an honorable man, you will not deny my request for satisfaction:
We must both have a drink.
March 1, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Way ahead of you on that one. I’m happy to have another, though.
March 1, 2008 at 6:09 pm
Y’know, I wanted a Hillary ad thread, but not this way….NOT THIS WAY!!!!
March 1, 2008 at 6:19 pm
I have imbibed my drink, toasting the good name and conclusions of Sifu Tweety Fish, thus proving that we are both honorable men (or at least that we have failed to prove ourselves dishonorable this day).
Also, don’t believe anyone who tells you that a martini is 5.5:1 gin:vermouth. It is, and always shall be 5:1.
March 1, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Uh, dude, there’s no need for respectful disagreement here.
March 1, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Uh, dude, there’s no need for respectful disagreement here.
I take particular exception to that.
Well, maybe not. I’m sure your reasons for your opinions are well-founded.
March 1, 2008 at 10:26 pm
Good night to you, sir!
March 1, 2008 at 11:58 pm
Hmm. I am starting to lose faith in the quality of Ann Althouse’s opinionating. This has been a week of disillusionment. In a day.
March 2, 2008 at 3:32 am
But there is plenty of money to be made here!
March 2, 2008 at 7:30 am
I have GOT to stop clicking on links before I’ve had my morning ketamine.
“…the usually serious blogger Kevin Drum calls me harebrained and a glue sniffer. The vicious attack on the messenger bespeaks fear of the message and lack of a substantive argument against it.”
I believe there’s a newly-minted word for people like this.
March 2, 2008 at 9:31 am
The PJs are covered by the the words “GOOD NIGHT”, so when I see NIG before a fold, I naturally think HT is continued underneath. But then, I’m not nuts.
March 2, 2008 at 10:17 am
so wait a minute, Ann Althouse is arguing that the pyjamas say: Good Nig?
March 3, 2008 at 9:09 am
And I was having serious issues with a mother who would dress her white child in pyjamas that had the “N” word on them only to discover that Ms. Althouse was wrong. I got all worked up for nothing.
March 3, 2008 at 9:21 am
That Althouse is such a cun
.
.
.
.
ning analyst of all things political.
March 3, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Actually, Flava flav said it best:
Yo! ho!…yo niga! yo niga! no niga!
Check it out
How can you say to me yo my niga
Cursin’ up a storm with your finger on a trigger
Feelin’ all the girls like a big gold digger
Take a small problem
Make a small problem bigger
Yo I ain’t poor I got dough
Don’t consider me your brother no more
Goddamn kilogram, how do you figure
I don’t want to be called yo niga
Yo niga
Hey
Yo niga
I try to make my statements
Stick like flypaper
Judge says to me yo niga sign these goddamn papers
My boss told me yo niga you’re fired
Yo niga this, yo niga that
I know you’re a niga now ’cause your head got fat
Flava framalama boy you won’t figure
I don’t wanna be called yo niga
Yo niga
Break it down
N.i.g.g.e.r.
Niga
Everybody sayin’ it
Everybody playin’ it rolling on the scales
’cause everybody’s weighin’ it
Toby say yo I be good niga
Let me get a shovel make a good digger
I don’t care how small or bigger
I don’t want to be called yo niga
Yo niga…
March 3, 2008 at 12:20 pm
In other news:
Six-legged ‘hexapus’ claimed as world first in Britain 35 minutes ago
LONDON (AFP) – British marine experts have found what they claim is a world first — a six-legged octopus, or “hexapus,” whom they have christened Henry.
ADVERTISEMENT
The unique sea creature, which has two limbs fewer than a normal octopus, is believed to be the result of a birth defect rather than an accident, say his keepers at the Blackpool Sea Life Centre in northwest England.
“We’ve scoured the Internet and talked to lots of other aquariums and no-one has ever heard of another case of a six-legged octopus,” said supervisor Carey Duckhouse.
Henry was discovered in a lobster pot off the north Wales coast two weeks ago, and was one of eight creatures that Sea Life staff picked up from a local marine zoo there — where staff hadn’t noticed his missing legs.
It was only when he attached himself to the inside of a glass tank that Sea Life staff noticed he was two limbs short of a full set. Octopuses are renowned for having three hearts and blue blood, but not usually six legs.
…
But, he asks, shouldn’t it really be called “sexapus”.
March 3, 2008 at 2:20 pm
What really gets me is that she KNOWS the pajamas say “Good Night” all over them, and she thinks (or is willing to claim she thinks) that the Clinton campaign’s nefarious subliminal advertising expert took the time to arrange the pajamas so that the “NIG” was exposed just right for the couple of seconds it’s visible, yet not enough time to ensure that the G was undeniably a G and not a C.
In fact it was only BECAUSE she knew they were “Good Night” pajamas that she was able to identify the G herself. I don’t understand how anyone can put together an argument so convolutedly self-contradictory without having their head explode.
And secondharmonic, you’re joking, of course, but the answer is no. -pus and -pod are Greek roots, so the Greek number root hexa- goes with them. It’s a little confusing because octo- is both Greek and Latin, but if the critter were called an octoped, its six-legged cousin would be called a sexaped; however, hexapus is correct as used in the article.
March 3, 2008 at 2:25 pm
“I am starting to lose faith in the quality of Ann Althouse’s opinionating.”
I don’t know from Althouse, but Khthrugman’s opinionifications are getting a wee cranky. Kaus-y, even.
March 3, 2008 at 8:17 pm
“The PJs are covered by the the words “GOOD NIGHT”, so when I see NIG before a fold, I naturally think HT is continued underneath. But then, I’m not nuts.”
Not nuts perhaps, but obviously a liberal fascist. You see, HT is an obvious abbreviation for HiTler, and that’s why you *naturally* thought that. QED.
March 4, 2008 at 3:17 pm
When I look at the still provided by our generous host, I [i]clearly[/i] see NiO, the chemical formula of nickel oxide. Nickel oxide is a carcinogen,* which [i]obviously[/i] implies something sinister about somebody.
Re: hexapus/sextapus: the “pus” is a Greek root, so the Greek prefix should be used. This is also why “octapi” is not the standard plural. I’ve had a plush 6-armed octapus for years now, so I’ve already thought about this.
*or at least a suspected carcinogen
March 4, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Phooey. I guessed wrong on the tags.
March 25, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Greetings from the world of the future, in which it’s revealed that the child in the stock footage used in the ad has grown up somewhat and become an Obama supporter.
Friends of mine feel that this conclusively proves her unfitness for office, because before using any stock footage, one must always track down the individuals shown in it, and make sure that they haven’t become fans of your political opponent. Otherwise, you are not presidential timber. Strewth!