Drudge reports "floating cross" in Huckabee Ad

[pastorables]

(Could be a bookcase but looks like a window also.)

I have watched it several times very closely. I'm about 90% sure that it's a bookshelf/case of some type. It appears to be sitting beside a stone fireplace? Notice the decorations sitting in the shelf.

If you will pause the moving frame, there is a point where you can clearly see the recessed areas of the shelving, yet there is no glass panes as a window would have.

pa

[Full Quiver]

Looks very much like a bookshelf to me also.

[Mike Vande]

I actually noticed the cross the first time I watched the video. I wondered if it were intentional but figured it was just coincidental that the windowpane behind him resembled a cross!

Very little is coincidental in presidential campaign ads.

By the way, the lights on the Christmas tree spelled out "I don't really like Kenneth Copeland" if you squint just right...

[scooter]

How many crosses do you see here? The background is a christmas tree sitting at a window and put into motion, showing only one of the cross-members. (Could be a bookcase but looks like a window also.)

Response: I see you are a trinitarian, with the three candles in the window.

[one love]

How many crosses do you see here? The background is a christmas tree sitting at a window and put into motion, showing only one of the cross-members. (Could be a bookcase but looks like a window also.)

Response: I see you are a trinitarian, with the three candles in the window.

I do agree with Pastor G. It was a shelf but it could have been set to image a cross. What would be wrong with that. Except he gives an image we could agree with but also have plausable deniablility that is was a shelf

[soulsearcher]

Huckabee himself said he was simply sitting in front of a bookcase.

And, as previously stated, the cross is evident everywhere - from telephone poles and intersections to every aspect of architecture, always reminding us of the intersecting of God with man.

[dolfan]

When it comes to Huckabee, I'm more concerned about the double-cross that I don't see than the crosses I can see in his ads. The real beef with those complaining about this ad, though, is simply that he is overtly Christian in his content. Nothing, not even Islam and not even nuclear stockpiling by rogue dictators and tribal thugs, is viewed with as much suspicion and animosity in America as a person who freely and openly follows the Christian faith.

[Paully_44]

I really havent read up too much on him or his views, but I do like his response on CNN.com

“Actually I will confess this, if you play this spot backwards it says ‘Paul is Dead, Paul is Dead, Paul is Dead,’” the presidential candidate joked to reporters in Houston Tuesday. “So the next thing you know, someone will be playing it backwards to find out the subliminal messages that are really there.”

[DeWayneTN]

Ron Paul saw the cross, because he dissed it on FoxNews, saying:

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."

[dolfan]

He was quoting Sinclair Lewis who said that. Not that I agree with Ron Paul on that point, but Huckabee certainly used his faith (IMO, now) as a campaign tactic. I thought it was cheap, and I thought the shot at him about the "floating cross" was even cheaper.

[Mister Ed]

How many crosses do you see here? The background is a christmas tree sitting at a window and put into motion, showing only one of the cross-members. (Could be a bookcase but looks like a window also.)

Response: I see you are a trinitarian, with the three candles in the window.

Just another example of trick photography - the three candles are the reflection of three of six candle type bulbs in a chandelier over my table.

And I accept the background as a bookshelf, rather than a window. I still like my old-fashion windows with the separate window panes, even though they are a "pain" to paint.

[Alan]

I recieved this e-mail from the AFA today.



NBC says some find bookcase and Christmas lights offensive

Candidate wishing voters Merry Christmas upsets some folks

Dear Alan,

The latest effort to spread the idea that religion has no place in the public square comes as a response to a TV spot produced by presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.

I urge you to watch the two video clips I have placed in this e-mail. First, is the ad by former Governor Huckabee wishing people a Merry Christmas.

Next, is a clip from the Today Show (Dec. 18), hosted by Meredith Vieira, on which Governor Huckabee was a guest. Vieira opens the interview talking about how some say the ad is sending an overt religious appeal to voters.

Some have become so openly hostile to the Christian faith that they are upset when a candidate simply wishes viewers Merry Christmas and mentions that --after all-- Christmas is the day Christians celebrate the birth of Christ.

The governor is accused of putting a cross in the background of his ad. The 'cross' they find offensive is nothing more than a bookcase. The critics say also the three lights stand for the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit! What is disappointing is that the media grabs such a concoction and makes big news out of this ad.

To me, these accusations are utterly silly, and biased. http://www.afa.net/activism/huckabee2.asp There are those who feel that nothing religious, especially wishing people Merry Christmas, should be made by anyone seeking public office. That is the attitude of those who want to drive religion from the public square.

[Mole_J]

Peggy Noonan's take on the floating cross and Mike Huckabee.

PEGGY NOONAN

American Pastoral
Mike Huckabee preaches to the choir, but not everyone's singing along.

Friday, December 21, 2007 12:01 a.m. EST

I didn't see the famous floating cross. What I saw when I watched Mike Huckabee's Christmas commercial was a nice man in a sweater sitting next to a brightly lit tree. He had easy warmth and big brown puppy-dog eyes, and he talked about taking a break from politics to remember the peace and joy of the season. Sounds good to me.

Only on second look did I see the white lines of the warmly lit bookcase, which formed a glowing cross. Someone had bothered to remove the books from that bookcase, or bothered not to put them in. Maybe they would have dulled the lines.

Is there a word for "This is nice" and "This is creepy"? For that is what I felt. This is so sweet-appalling.

I love the cross. The sight of it, the fact of it, saves me, literally and figuratively. But there is a kind of democratic politesse in America, and it has served us well, in which we are happy to profess our faith but don't really hit people over the head with its symbols in an explicitly political setting, such as a campaign commercial, which is what Mr. Huckabee's ad was.

I wound up thinking this: That guy is using the cross so I'll like him. That doesn't tell me what he thinks of Jesus, but it does tell me what he thinks of me. He thinks I'm dim. He thinks I will associate my savior with his candidacy. Bleh.

The ad was shrewd. The caucus is coming, the TV is on, people are home putting up the tree, and the other candidates are all over the tube advancing themselves and attacking someone else. Mr. Huckabee thinks, I'll break through the clutter by being the guy who reminds us of the reason for the season, in a way that helps underscore that I'm the Christian candidate and those other fellas aren't. As a break from the nattering argument, as a message that highlights something bigger than politics, it was refreshing.

Was the cross an accident? Please. It was as accidental as Mr. Huckabee's witty response, when he accused those of questioning the ad of paranoia, was spontaneous. "Actually I will confess this, if you play this spot backwards it says 'Paul is dead, Paul is dead, Paul is dead,' " he said. As Bill Safire used to say of clever moves, "That's good stuff!"

Ken Mehlman, the former Republican chairman, once bragged in my presence that in every ad he did he put in something wrong--something that went too far, something debatable. TV producers, ever hungry for new controversy, would play the commercial over and over as pundits on the panel deliberated over its meaning. This got the commercial played free all over the news.

The cross is the reason you saw the commercial. The cross made it break through.

Mr. Huckabee is a telegenic presence, fluid and unself-conscious. The camera is his friend. It is not the potential exposer of his flaws but the conduit by which his warmth and intelligence can be more broadly known. This gift, and seeing the camera this way is a gift, carries greater implications in American politics than, say, in British politics. In Britain, public persona is important, as Tony Blair showed, but there you rise up in the parliamentary system. You have to learn to play well with the other children. You have to form alliances, handle a portfolio, create coalitions, lead within the party and then the country.

In American politics you don't have to go through that grueling process. You can be born on TV. Some candidates for president have a closer relationship with the makeup woman at "Hannity" and the guy who mics you up on "Meet" than they do with state party chiefs and union leaders. Experience, background and positions can be trumped by killer spots or a dominating debate performance.

This is some of Mr. Huckabee's power. There's the fact that he's new, and the fact that Americans are in a funny historic moment: The lives they lead are good, and comfortable, but they sense deep down that the infrastructure of our good fortune is in many ways frail, that Citi may fall and Korea go crazy and some nut go kaboom. In such circumstances some would think a leader radically different--an outsider, a minister, a self proclaimed non-establishment type--might be an answer.

Mr. Huckabee reminds me of two governors who became president, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Like Mr. Clinton, he is a natural, charming, bright and friendly. Yet one senses something unsavory there, something not so nice. Like Mr. Bush, his approach to politics seems, at bottom, highly emotional, marked by great spurts of feeling and mighty declarations as to what the Lord wants. The problem with this, and with Bushian compassionate conservatism, which seems to have an echo in Mr. Huckabee's Christianism, is that to the extent it is a philosophy, it is not a philosophy that allows debate. Because it comes down to "This is what God wants." This is not an opener of discussion but a squelcher of it. It doesn't expand the process, it frustrates it.

Mr. Huckabee is clever. He puts forth his policies, such as they are, based on a faith-based understanding of public policy, and if you disagree with his policies, or take a hard shot at them, or at him, he suggests the reason is that you look down on evangelicals. This creates a new fissure in a party already riven by fissures. He has been accused by some in the conservative press of tearing the party apart, but it was being torn apart before he got on the scene. His rise is not a cause of collapse but an expression of it.

He plays the victim well. Others want to "trip him up," but he'll "get my message out there." His foes are "Wall Street-Washington" insiders, elitists. On the "Today" show he said his critics are the type who never liked evangelical Christians. When one of them runs, these establishment types say " 'Oh my gosh, now they're serious, they don't want to just show up and vote, they actually would want to be part of the discussion and really talk about issues that include hunger and poverty and things.' "

This is a form of populist manipulation. Evangelical Christians have been strong in the Republican Party since the 1970s. President Bush and Karl Rove helped them become more important. The suggestion that they are a small and abused group within the GOP is strange. It is as if the Reagan Democrats, largely Catholic and suburban, who buoyed the Republican Party from the late '70s through 2004, and who were very much part of the GOP coalition, decided to announce that Catholics have been abused within the party, and it's time for Christmas commercials with floating Miraculous Medals.

Does Mr. Huckabee understand that his approach is making people uncomfortable? Does he see himself as divisive? He's a bright man, so it's hard to believe he doesn't. But it's working for him. It's getting him his 30 points in Iowa in a crowded field.

Could he win the nomination? Who knows? It's all a bubbling stew on the Republican side, and no one knows who'll float to the top. In an interview this week with David Brody of CBN, Mr. Huckabee said people everywhere were coming to him and saying, "We are claiming Isaiah 54 for you, that the weapons formed against you will not prosper."

Prayer is powerful. But Huckabee's critics say he's a manipulator with a mean streak and little knowledge of the world. And Isaiah 54 doesn't say anything about self-inflicted wounds.

Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal and author of "John Paul the Great: Remembering a Spiritual Father" (Penguin, 2005), which you can order from the OpinionJournal bookstore. Her column appears Fridays on OpinionJournal.com.

[Steve]

Huckabee talks about the whole "Floating Cross" thing.

[dolfan]

Food for thought on Mike Huckabee, all who say you support him and say you are conservatives:

1. He accepted $35,000 in "honoraria" as governor of Arkansas from Novo Nordisk, a large researcher using embryonic stem cells.


2. When the Clintons left the WH, they registered for gifts. They were investigated by the House Government Reform Committee, roundly criticized for their overt hands out for largesse, but they were cleared of any illegality. Well, it runs in the Arkansas water. When Mike Huckabee and his wife were leaving office in Arkansas, they registered for wedding gifts at Dillard's and Target stores in Little Rock. They'd been married for years, although they did 're-up' their vows in a so-called "covenant marriage" in 2005. Arkansas law forbids gifts to officials leaving office that are based on their political activities. I'm sure their friends were all too glad to buy them gifts of up to $1,000 in value each (that's the limit of a gift card the Huckabees registered for), but not for anything they did in office. They've renewed their vows TWO TIMES, by the way.

3. When Huckabee moved into the Gov.'s mansion in Arkansas, a cotton planter and contributor gave him $70,000 worth of new furniture for the private, personal quarters in the mansion. He was investigated, called it a personal gift, then had to "disown" much of it.

4. He used inaugural funds to buy clothes for his wife. BTW, former Alabama governor Guy Hunt -- a former probate judge and Primitive Baptist preacher -- was convicted for doing that (not for his wife, though .... evidently in Arkansas, that's a defense) and he was unseated when convicted, then later pardoned by the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles.