Which is why I found this particular piece of "detective" work offensive, idiotic, and beyond the pale:
Yes, that's right. Bill is making the argument that since a news aggregater has 6 images of black men in one month (April)- and the images are not flattering - that Drudge is racist.
I love to research things, and this seemed kinda custom built for an investigation. So I set my criteria ahead of time, and went to work grabbing DrudgeReport images from the month of April.
My criteria:
- I would start at the archive calendar, and go to each date in April.
- On each date, there are several dozen links. I would pick two or three at random, and grab the photos.
- I would only grab the "headline" photo, but I'd grab it no matter what it was.
- I would then shrink the images so that you could see them close together and get an idea of what they looked like as a group.
The goal was not to grab every single photo... but to get a really, really good representation of what a month load of Drudge photos look like. Keep in mind, this was completely at random.
Here's what I found:
Now you might notice a few things about this first composite: there are a few photos of Obama smiling. An image of Santorum looking defeated. (He just kinda was.) And of course, a depressed Fed Reserve Chairman.Next composite...
Tim Tebow looks great, but he's kinda the only one. Chavez looks like an overweight evangelist, Obama looks depressed, Romney looks like a Point Break reject, the Pope looks like an extra from an Indiana Jones film, Holder looks guilty, and the last image of Obama looks, well... just about right.
The point being, everyone seems to be made fun of. Would you agree?
Let's keep going...
An obvious image of Obama losing his cool, Santorum looking thrilled (when the image was connected with him bowing out of the campaign), two depressing images of Zimmerman, an image from India's quake, a family photo of the Romney's to accompany the story about how Ann "doesn't work", and that idiot from North Korea.
Next...
A few stories on the media, and how the candidates feel they are perceived by them. A flattering image of Obama, an unflattering one, and one where Warren Buffet looks like a tool. A sour image of Cheney.
Next:
Two unflattering images of Zimmerman, plus one of his bloody head. A secret service hooker. Nicolas Sarkozy, and two images of Obama which are neither pretty nor ugly.
Next:
Obama's lawyer. Two images of Romney looking good, one of him looking constipated. Another hooker. Biden looking confused. Unhappy Zimmerman... and some guy that none of us know in a big leather chair.
Next:
We're already into late April, btw. Six images of Obama... one that makes him look flattering. An image that reflects unkindly on Anarchists. A triptych of images of Murdoch that make him look like he's losing an argument.
Are we getting the pattern yet?
With few exceptions... Drudge uses images that are either making fun of the person in the story, or reflect the tone of the story.
Last ones...
Okay, an image of Romney that makes him look like a failed superhero, and Obama greeting Kagan.
And that's what I found.
So you might wonder... since I scoured the images from April in a random fashion - and I didn't come up with the same images that Bill Maher did - was I leaving something out purposely?
No, I was not. In fact, I made a point of it to just put up the images that I found, whether or not they reflected either what I thought of Drudge, or what I think of Bill Maher.
You can do your own experiment, and see if you find similar images.
The point is that Drudge uses images to make fun of everyone. And I mean everyone.
The fact that Bill Maher went through and found images of black men that were not flattering, and that he missed all of the images of other people who were not flattering? Well, that's Bill Maher. We can't even begin to think of what's going on in his head, but clearly, he went in with an agenda, and not with any intent of being honest.
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