Politics

Think Progress Ridiculous Soft Focus Pics Hide Low Obama Turnout

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Today Obama officially began his 2012 campaign, though he’s hardly been doing anything else for the last 3 and a half years. His first stop was in Ohio, and Think Progress was there to document the throngs and throngs of stupid supporters:

Wow look at all those people!! There must be.. uh… 75? It’s just a poorly framed shot is all.. let’s pull back, courtesy again of Think Progress:

Whoah whoah what’s with the soft focus?! Could they be hiding something?

Let’s see:

 

Ben Howe posted this quote from the Columbus dispatch:

Noting that the Obama campaign had predicted an “overflow crowd,” Williams said, “This arena was not full so the president failed to meet the bar his campaign set.”

I can imagine the frantic socialists at Think Progress panicking, “MORE soft focus!! MOAR!! Damn the Press Torpedos!!”

Steven Branum makes a great observation in the comments:

The picture was Photoshopped using a Feathered Selection with a Gaussian Blur applied. Note how immediately above the MSNBC Leaning Foward banner the people are in focus, but people below them to the left and right (all of them closer to the camera) are blurred. Also note that some of the ones VERY close to the camera are in focus, but others a few feet away are blurred. No camera in the world could produce such a picture using soft focus alone.

Ed Henry reported on twitter that the campaign had received 30,000 RSVPs – barely half of that showed up.

 

The good people at Twitchy rounded up some tweets about the low showing