"Cross"-Eyed

There's a whole lot of hoopla about Mike Huckabee's Christmas Campaign ad. At issue is the fact that a bookshelf in the background gives the distinct impression of a Cross. The idea that is being put forth by many is that this is a subliminal message endorsing Christianity, and, they say, it interjects too much faith into politics, or something like that.

I have to concede the point that the bookshelf in question does look an awful lot like a Cross in the background of the ad, but Mr. Huckabee claims that it was not deliberate, and that they hadn't noticed it until the "issue" was raised by people who cried "Offense!" And while this seems a bit tough to swallow, given all of the staffers who would have seen screenings before the ad aired, we certainly don't have any proof that any of them brought it up. Perhaps some saw it, thought it was deliberate, and liked it, so didn't feel they needed to comment on it. Sounds plausible, but the truth is that we just don't know.

Another point here is that it doesn't seem to me that this was done deliberately, and the reason I say that is simple, the ad was blatantly Christian in theme, with Governor Huckabee talking about Christmas, and even saying the words, "Birth of Christ." So, given that, why in the world would they deny the Cross if they had intended to put it there? Huckabee says he's a Christian, so he wouldn't need to hide it if he were surrounded by Christian symbols, especially at Christmas time.

All of this being said of course, I need to ask something now, what's with the "subliminal" thing? Even if it were put there deliberately, it's not subliminal, it's not even all that subtle, but is fairly in your face, perhaps not so much so that it couldn't be missed by some people, but certainly enough to show that it's not subliminal.

More than likely this is just another case of people seeing something that they wanted to see. They were looking for a reason to point another finger at Huckabee and say that he's too religious, and that he brings too much faith into politics. Something I've always said, and I can't claim it to be original, even though I don't know where I might have heard it, I may have picked it up somewhere; If you look hard enough for something, you'll likely find it, regardless of whether it's there or not. I think that just might be what happened here.

Regardless of what actually happened, you can count on the mainstream media to use this to further their agenda of seeing a Democrat elected to the White House in 2008. We've known for a long time that a majority of Journalists, and others in the media, are unabashedly liberal, but now they don't even give so much as lip service to the idea of fairly reporting a story, always having to spin it, or add some sort of slant, or angle, that makes things come out their way.

Either way, right now Huckabee is immensely popular with many Conservative Republicans, and this ad, deliberate Cross or not, will not hurt him in the Primary one little bit. If, however, he gets the nod, you can count on the dems and the media to try to use it any way they can to discredit him as a contender for the Presidency. I would say the polls don't lie, but that would be a lie, so I won't. In my opinion polls are the next thing to worthless, but many media types like to quote them as if they are the be-all and end-all of American politics. Only time will tell.