Earlier this year, if you recall, I
posted about the controversy regarding a press conference President Biden held where on YouTube news channel comments there were totally opposite opinions of how the president fared in handling the topic of the press conference itself as well as follow-up questions which he chose to take. I saw the totally 180° variance in perspective as being similar to that of the famous internet controversy of a decade ago or so about the blue dress or white dress perception issue.
In my post, I pointed out my observation of the array of books arranged on the mantle behind the president. Here's what I wrote along with the screen cap of that news conference:
"By the way, I want to draw your attention to the photo of the president above. Notice that row of books on the mantle behind him. If you look closely they show the name of the most recent presidents on them. Irrespective of term of office, it appears that each president has two volumes each. From the left we can see Richard Nixon, but it can be assumed that there may be a few volumes hidden behind the American flag that precede his, Kennedy's and LBJ's volumes. From Nixon it proceeds down the line chronologically to Ford, Carter, Reagan (with those two presidents' volumes obscured by Biden's head), George Bush, Clinton and then the flag of the Seal of the President hides the rest. But I literally took a little measurement and I believe there's only room for four more volumes behind that flag which would account for George W. Bush and Obama. So apparently there are no volumes for Donald Trump.
I have no idea what these volumes are. Are they presidential memoirs? Or some other documents attributed to each of the presidents? I don't know but the clear omission of Trump, I can only guess, is on purpose and serves as a very subtle jab to the legacy of Biden's predecessor. Again, I'm not a Trump supporter, but I do see an enormous amount of effort, especially from the Democrats and pro-Democratic media, to downplay anything related to Donald Trump. Now if Biden himself thought about this little Easter Egg f-you to Trump, maybe this whole dottering old man business is just an act after all."
At a quick glance the two photos appear to be taken from the same room in the White House, but if you look closely at the detailing of the mantle, and the sconces, as well as the painting in the earlier picture, you can see that in fact, it's a whole different room. This newer press conference, conducted just today I guess, appears to be in a larger room since it's a larger fireplace with a painting that's hung at a higher height and there appear to be no sconces on either side. (By the way, neither of the above rooms are the Oval Office.) The books that were arranged on the mantle in the smaller room from the February press conference are either identical copies or are the very same ones that have been moved to this new room.
In the new picture, (the one at the top in case you're getting confused) since there's more room on the larger mantle, we can see more volumes than we could earlier. Now we can indeed see the volumes that were hidden behind the American flag revealing those for John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. On the right hand side, we can see those that were obscured by the Presidential Seal flag for George W. Bush and Barack Obama. So the question is, is this now the entire collection? Or would there be one more volume on each side behind the flags still, one on the left for Dwight D. Eisenhower and one on the right for Donald J. Trump?
You know ma' old man JaBiden with the last neuron firing in his feeble brain is having his final chuckle as he thinks of the Tangerine One watching this and wondering that very question. Joe is mumbling low and nasty to himself in his Dark Brandon voice, "Well you're never going to find out, motherfucker, cuz you'll never set foot in this house ever again! Hahahahaha!"
