"Why are the letters 'NIG' on the child's pajamas?"Asks a commenter — "Tom" — on my post about the new Hillary Clinton commercial, the one that shows several children sleeping and then Clinton taking a national security phone call in the middle of the night. You can see the commercial at the link, and the pajamas in question are on display during seconds 11 and 12. On pausing, staring, and thinking, I believe these are pajamas that say "good night" all over them, but the letters "NIG" are set apart by a fold in the fabric.
Is the campaign responsible for sending out a subliminal message to stimulate racist thoughts in the unsuspecting viewer? It is either deliberate or terribly incompetent. There is no other writing on screen until the very end of the commercial, and if letters appear in any place in a commercial, they should be carefully selected letters. Certainly, each image is artfully composed and shot and intended to deliver an emotional impact...
Here it comes...Althouse is nuts and this story is complete crap! There is a simple explanation for why this is NOT subliminal racist messaging—THIS IS STOCK FOOTAGE! Hillary and her ad team didn't "artfully compose and shoot" this, this is footage purchased from a stock photo/video source and assembled into an ad.
How do I know this? Because it's what agencies do. It is cost- and time-prohibitive to cast, set-up and shoot stuff like that. It's why Obama's response ad uses the SAME footage of the house exterior and the other kids at the beginning—they both bought the footage. I suspect the only reason Obama's ad doesn't show the same pajama shot is that his ad has already cut away to footage of him.
I am not aware of any stock video houses that offer a category of "subliminal N-words for use in campaigns against black candidates." This is simply a coincidence that the word NIGHT is partially obscured.
[...] nothing compared to "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.
More projection there...I'm not sure the message of this ad has anything to do with Obama being a black man answering the phone, just that he's inexperienced, according to HRC.
Althouse and anybody else making any kind of deal out of this are looking through a delusio-microscope to find shit that simply isn't there. Althouse is the same columnist who dissected the stupid Clinton "Sopranos" ad a couple years ago and found vaginas in every plate of onion rings and carrot-penises ready to dive into them. Ridiculous.
[via Benen]
