Zombie has the story at PJM:

Obama waving-hand gaffe picture NOT a hoax or a Photoshop after all!

Over the last few hours a photo has begun to circulate on the blogs showing Obama supposedly at the “Open Government Partnership” conference today committing an egregious gaffe by raising his hand to block the face of another world leader.
[…]
So, following the lead in the image’s credit line — “Allan Tannenbaum-Pool / Getty Images” — I went straight to the supposed source…and to my utter astonishment, I discovered that the image is indeed from Getty Images and can be found on their site:

Getty Images — Title: Obama Meets With World Leaders At The United Nations

Here’s how it appears on the Getty Images page, with their watermark over the picture:

And here’s the official Getty caption:

Caption: NEW YORK – SEPTEMBER 20: U.S. President Barack Obama waves while standing with aother leaders during the Open Government Partnership event at the United Nations September 20, 2011 in New York City.

It still looks fake to me, but that would mean that Getty itself is now putting out faked photos — which is extremely unlikely, especially after the number of times other news wire services were burned by untrustworthy stringers.

The image’s authenticity is further confirmed by the existence on the Getty site — which serves as sort of a “raw feed” of news photos which subscribing editors can browse through — of an “alternate take” photo showing a slight close-up of Obama in the group shot, this time with his hand not blocking his neighbor’s face.
[…]
Read it all.

Now this is embarrassing.

Not only for President Elbegdorj, but for the citizenry of the US.

If you are as dumbfounded and ashamed by the behavior of Barack Hussein Obama as I am, there is something that you can do.

PJM: New “Sorry Everybody” campaign: Apologize on Obama’s behalf to the President of Mongolia

Remember the “Sorry Everybody” campaign during the Bush era in which Americans were encouraged to apologize to the world for having such an idiot president?

Well, time for an update. As we noted yesterday, Obama embarrassed himself — and, by extension, the rest of the nation — by holding up his hand and blocking the face of Mongolian president Tsakhia Elbegdorj during a photo shoot at the UN:

So far, the White House has not yet issued a formal apology to Mr. Elbegdorj. So let’s take the matter into our own hands and apologize ourselves!

This page allows you to send emails directly to the Mongolian President:
[…]
Since Obama won’t apologize for his gaffe, we must apologize for him.

Please use the form to write a respectful letter of apology to President Elbegdorj, explaining why you think Obama felt it necessary to insult the leader of a sovereign nation.

…And of course, feel free to re-post your apology letter here (just like in the original “Sorry Everybody” campaign)!

Click here to read the rest, and write your own letter!

Here’s what I wrote:

Dear President Elbegdorj:

I apologize for President Barack Hussein Obama’s rude behavior in putting his hand in front of your face in a recent group photograph.

President Obama is a rude, ignorant, selfish, and thoughtless person. So were we, as a people, for allowing him to serve in public office in any capacity. Even though I did not vote for him, I take responsibility as an American citizen, and I apologize.

…the sun is about to set.

As you already know, I had little to say about the 2008 US presidential election because, then as now, I regarded both of the candidates, and all their pomps and all their works, as beneath comment.

Even before the election, it was obvious to me that the winning candidate would someday deeply regret having run for that office. Let me go on record that I stand by that prediction.

It has often been claimed that no one can win a thermonuclear war. Be that as it may, there is no question that it is easy enough to lose one! In similar fashion, becoming president of the US at this time is just as clearly a no-win scenario for the perpetrator and all his retinue.

Despite all the empty promises from both sides, there is simply nothing that any US president could do at this point to effect a recovery. A recovery would have to happen on its own, and every day that goes by, it seems that we have less and less to build on, in terms of civil and industrial infrastructure, a functioning civil society, and an informed citizenry.

The mass media and what we call our educational system seem to be doing everything they can to keep the citizenry from figuring out what their supposed betters are about. Oh, and by the way, everything I have just said about the plight of the US goes double for the EU.

The scope of the problem

See for yourself what already happened to a part of the US that lost its productive capacity:

• detroitfunk.com
• detroitblog
• The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit
• The Motor(less) City

With trees growing up through abandoned buildings, large parts of Detroit have already come to resemble scenes from the grim speculative documentary Life After People.

By now, the US economic decline has spread far beyond Detroit and the Rust Belt.

Think about it: When was the last time you saw the label “Made in USA” on any product, good or bad?

And no, it is not possible to sustain a “service economy” without a viable manufacturing infrastructure. Not that there is a service economy to sustain – the real estate bubble has already burst, the remains of our financial sector are being artificially propped up with money that we do not have and cannot earn, and much of our service sector employment has already been outsourced! It should surprise no one that the unemployment picture is considerably worse than the official figures would lead us to believe (see The really, really bad news about the unemployment rate). Newspapers throughout the US report that state and local tax revenues are shrinking due to declining income and property values.

What is left?

I recently heard yet another self-styled pundit of the US employment scene recommending three areas where there still seem to be some jobs for Americans. The only available jobs are in health care, education, and government work – because they cannot be outsourced.

Wow.

Will someone please explain to me who is going to pay for this health care, education, and government work? Does anyone care to predict what will happen after we go into debt to educate the next generation, knowing that there will be no jobs for them after they finish school?

Where do we go from here?

Good question.

And yes, I do have an answer! My point in posting this is that we need to understand exactly what our problems are, and the true extent of our difficulties, before we can even begin to address them.

What’s the next step? We need to stop wasting tax dollars on bailing out Wall Street. Instead, we need to bring our industrial base back to the US. We need to repeal the tax laws and ever-proliferating regulations that have been strangling US businesses or driving them overseas. We need to make it much simpler and more cost-effective for businesses, especially smaller businesses, to provide jobs for US citizens. That’s the only government “stimulus package” that will work.

No, it is not all under our control. But we can keep the faith and do our best to help each other. As Bishop Antoun of the Antiochian Orthodox Church recently told us, “The Lord will provide.”

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