Google looked like a monkey after its algorithms had an unfortunate result for searches for photos of the First Lady.

For most of the past week, when someone typed “Michelle Obama” in the popular search engine Google, one of the first images that came up was a picture of the American first lady altered to resemble a monkey.

On Wednesday morning, the racially offensive image appeared to have been removed from any Google Image searches for “Michelle Obama.”

Google officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

Google faced a firestorm of criticism over the episode. First, it banned the Web site that posted the photo, saying it could spread a malware virus. Then, when the image appeared on another Web site, Google let the photo stand. When a Google image search brought up the photo, an apologetic Google ad occasionally appeared above it.

The ad redirected users to a statement from Google which read, “Sometimes Google search results from the Internet can include disturbing content, even from innocuous queries. We assure you that the views expressed by such sites are not in any way endorsed by Google.”

Guardian’s Mark Sweeney has a more detailed explanation:

The image, which has been appearing at the top of search results when the words “Michelle Obama” are put into Google Images, was posted on a blog called Hot Girls, which is hosted by the Google-owned blog service, Blogger.

Hot Girls’ owner has today removed the image, which appears to have originally been put up with a blog post on 21 October, and displayed an apology in Chinese with a very loose English translation.

Google had refused to remove the offensive image from its picture search listings, despite complaints that it is racist, instead opting to run an ad next to it explaining its policy on how search engine results work.

A spokesman for Google said that the Hot Girls blog and image may still temporarily appear when some users make Google Images searches but that it was coming out of the search engine’s indexing system.

The company has been unusually responsive in this case, and understandably so.  But the fact of the matter is that its Image Search, while simply amazing in many respects (I use it all the time for photos to illustrate posts at OTB), is subject to the same manipulation as its text search results.   Indeed, it’s hard to search for anything at all — but especially people’s names — and not find plenty of dubious results.

Photo credit:  Island Crisis

Time for the Thursday OTB Caption Contest^TM

REUTERS/Eliana Aponte (MEXICO SOCIETY)

Winners will be announced Monday PM

Time for the Monday OTB Caption Contest^TM

(AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

Winners will be announced Thursday PM

Last Thursday Contest winners will be announced Tuesday PM

Huffington Post is catching some grief over a post by Anya Strzemien titled “Sarah Palin’s Toenails: What’s Painted On Them? (PHOTOS, POLL).”  Apparently, the Alaska governor and former Republican vice presidential nominee had some manner of decorative adornment on her nails which were in display in some orange strappy sandals:

While some are taking HuffPo to task for journalistic silliness and questioning whether they have a foot fetish, the most prevalent theme of the critics is whether it’s sexist to comment on how a female public figure looks.

We’ve said many times that focus on a woman’s body parts instead of her ideas and actions is sexist, and that such belittling is aimed at women on both the left and right by both men and women.  In this case, some will argue that HuffPo is just having a little fun.  However the comments posted after the stroy are classist, sexist, and hateful, which can’t be a surprise to Huffpo.  So what about encouraging comments that you know are going to be a mysogyny fest?  Is that sexist, too?

Teresa Kopec, who tipped me to the story via Twitter, observes, “There is a lot of anti-woman BS that is going around lately against Palin, Sotomayor, the women targeted by Playboy, etc.”

While perhaps it’s splitting hairs, I would distinguish between sexism and double standards.  There’s not much doubt that the way women look is more commented upon than the way men look.  That doesn’t necessarily translate into thinking women’s intellects or skills are less important than those of men.

I don’t think, for example, that Hillary Clinton or Sonia Sotomayor have been viewed as silly sex objects.  It’s certainly true that Clinton’s appearance has been at issue as long as I can recall her being in public life (which is to say, since 1991 or so).   When she was First Lady, her hairdo was especially commented on, as was her choice of pantsuits vice dresses. And WaPo’s Robin Givhan devoted a whole story on C1 to Hillary Clinton’s cleavage.  And then there was the case of Condoleezza Rice’s commanding clothes which, according to a C1 story in WaPo, spoke of “sex and power,” also from Givhan.

Do we comment like that on how male public officials dress?   No, we don’t.

To be sure, there’s the occasional story on John Bolton’s hair or Dick Cheney’s Auschwitz outfit or John McCain’s $520 Ferragamo loafers.   But they’re decidedly less common.

Still, Clinton is almost universally perceived as an extraordinarily bright and competent woman.  She catapulted to the United States Senate despite no real record of her own and was considered the hands-down frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination six years later.  And Sotomayor’s words and judicial record, not her toenails or fashion sense, are what we’re focusing on.

Palin is almost a separate case.  She was a virtual unknown on the national scene when McCain tabbed her, so her national image was forged by instant impression.  By vice presidential standards, she’s extraordinarily attractive.  She’s young and a former beauty queen. Further, she dresses in a way that plays up her sexuality.  Why, a recent scientifical study found that Palin’s sexiness hurt the ticket.  Naturally, the news of said study sparked a round of blogospheric discussion about Palin’s hotness and a backlash against bloggers talking about Palin’s hotness.

Still, while the focus on her appearance goes well beyond what would be normal for a male candidate, it’s not like there wasn’t plenty of commentary on her preparation for the job.  Indeed, I’m sure she’d rather we spent more time talking about her legs.

As to this particular controversy, it’s a silly blog post and some of the commentary it drew was particularly unattractive.  Palin is a polarizing figure, which doesn’t help.  Then again, one can scarcely imagine, say, Tim Pawlenty appearing at a public event in jean shorts and sandals, the male analog to what Palin was photographed in.

Yesterday, as was noted here and there, was the 6th anniversary of the United States invasion of Iraq.   That we’re still there after so many years is remarkable — depending on who’s counting, it’s the second longest war in American history — but the number 6 isn’t one we pay much attention to.  We like round numbers and multiples of 5.

Anyway, TPM has created an interesting photo gallery (”6 Years in Iraq: A Timeline in Images”) commemorating the milestones of our involvement there with images.  They’re worth a look.

In the early going, it sure looked like these would be the iconic photographs:

As time went on, these seemed more likely to be the images history remembered the war by:

Soon, though, this looked like a strong possibility:

I’m not so sure anymore.  The war-as-war has largely gone off the radar screen.  Indeed, while it was the issue that put OTB on the map, weeks go by now when I don’t write about it.  That’s the nature of it having gone from a mostly kinetic operation to a counterinsurgency/stability mission.

So what’s going to be the defining image of the war looking back from, say, 2020?

UPDATE:  Via Andrew Sullivan, I see that Peter Feaver has weighed in on a variant of this question:

I believe reasonable people can look at that ledger (or a more complete version of it) and conclude that the Iraq war was not worth it. I also believe reasonable people can look at that ledger and conclude that the Iraq war was a defensible gamble or even the right decision. However, I do not think that reasonable people can seriously look at that ledger and conclude, as so much of the angry-shout part of the commentariat does, that all of the evidence stacks up on only one side of the balance sheet.

Six years into this long war, it is high time we started having an honest debate about it, and that honesty requires a great deal more humility, on both sides of the debate, about the decisions that were made and the paths that were not taken.

Not likely, I’m afraid.

Kate McMillan has discovered a treasure trove of photos at whitehouse.gov placed in a sub-subdirectory called “hero.”  All of the photos in that subdirectory include a certain resident of the White House.  Bob McCarty and Jeff Emanuel discovered the same thing independently.

Now, I’m pretty sure Obama doesn’t have time to upload photos to the White House website and that file naming conventions are delegated to some lower level official, such as Joe Biden.  But, seriously, What the Hell?

Above, our hero watches the Super Bowl on television. (Oddly, the original has the embedded caption “Basketball on South Grounds Super Bowl Party.”)

UPDATE: A little more digging finds plenty of photos in the directory not featuring Obama; some, including this one, include no people at all.

For the record, the Bush White House used a more standard nomenclature.   For example, this one is at /news/releases/2009/01/images/20090115_d-0376-6-515h.html.

UPDATE 2:  Commenter Urbaniac may have solved our little mystery:

“Hero: When viewing a proof sheet or selection of images, the Hero image is the image selected for final use i.e. typically the best image from the selection.”-Photography terms glossary

Not necessarily the most efficient way of cataloging the images but it makes some sense.  The folder is protected (as it should be) so I can’t review the images collectively but it would indeed be useful to have the “heroes” in a separate folder.

via @pwgavin, I see that Washingtonian magazine’s Kelli DiNardo has done a “Dating Diaries Roundtable: How Many Dates Until Sex?” complete with names, bios, and photos of the respondents.

@pw seems mildly upset by this, snarking, “Wow, looks like it won’t be long before Washingtonian mag moves from Best Dentist to Best Stripper.”

But it’s a pretty useful service if you’re into that sort of thing . . . .

Barack Obama has already lowered the standards of the presidency, CNN Political Ticker reports.

It’s the same Oval Office. The same desk. Even the same curtains. But President Obama has already made one major change: Go through eight years of White House photos, and you won’t find one of former President Bush in the Oval Office without his jacket on.

It wasn’t just a personal preference. In the Bush administration, it was a rule: Jackets in the Oval Office — and now, it seems, one of the first Bush-era regulations to get scrapped in the Obama White House.

The “jacket at all times to respect the dignity of the Oval Office” was apparently one of Ronald Reagan’s rules that Bush adopted in the post-Clinton era to “set the right tone.” As symbolism goes, it’s not bad. It’s similar to the football coach who requires that players keep their helmets on, even while standing on the sidelines, to “keep their heads in the game.”

At the same time, there’s nothing magic about a jacket. I type this sitting dressed much as Obama is (my shirt’s light blue and my tie’s red with blue stripes, if you must know – both Brooks Brothers); I hang my suit jacket up upon arriving at the office, donning it only for important meetings. If Team Obama can be more effective by being a bit more comfortable, more power to them.

Today’s Headline of the Day: “Gay-rights leaders’ enthusiasm for Obama subsides.”

Clearly, they haven’t seen the latest photos of him without his shirt on.

Apparently, some folks are irate that Newsweek put a close-up of Sarah Palin on their cover this week and didn’t airbrush away her imperfections.

This, apparently, is “a slap in the face.”

Sarah Palin 'One of the Folks' NEWSWEEK cover

Critics note that it’s pretty standard to touch up photographs, especially close-ups, to be more flattering and that Newsweek photos of Barack Obama are much nicer, with one even putting a halo on this one.

I didn’t pay much attention to the issue when it arrived in the mail yesterday.  Certainly, it’s not the best image of Palin I’ve ever seen.  If people are looking for evidence that Newsweek is trying to sabotage her, though, the cover story, not the cover, would be a better place to look.

Palin is on the ticket because she connects with everyday Americans. It is not shocking to learn that politics played a big role in the making of a presidential team (ticket-balancing to attract different constituencies has been with us at least since Andrew Jackson ran with John C. Calhoun, a man he later said he would like to kill). But that honest explanation of the rationale for her candidacy—not her preparedness for office, but her personality and nascent maverickism in Alaska—raises an important question, not only about this election but about democratic leadership. Do we want leaders who are everyday folks, or do we want leaders who understand everyday folks? Therein lies an enormous difference, one that could decide the presidential election and, if McCain and Palin were to win, shape the governance of the nation.

There’s much less room for questioning intent here, methinks.

I am assured by the folks at National Enquirer that these are THE PHOTOS EVERYONE’S BEEN WAITING FOR!

The NATIONAL ENQUIRER is releasing the photograph that the world has been waiting for – the first-ever picture of John Edwards and his love child!

The stunning “spy photo” shows the former presidential contender holding his infant daughter Frances Quinn Hunter at the Beverly Hilton hotel in Los Angeles – where the ENQUIRER caught him visiting the baby’s mother, his mistress Rielle Hunter.

Edwards is holding his love child while standing in front of a distinctive striped curtain.  The same window covering hangs in each one of the hotel’s guest rooms – and is clearly visible in photos of guest rooms on the hotel’s Web site.

“These photos are damning proof,” said a source close to the situation.  “He’s been caught lying about his affair with Rielle and their love child for many months – and now the proof against him is piling up.  His elaborate coverup is unraveling at the seams.”

TO SEE THE EXCLUSIVE SPY PHOTOS AND LEARN ALL THE SHOCKING DETAILS pick up The ENQUIRER– on sale now!

Or, it could be John Edwards with some random baby and all PhotoShopped.  Who knows these days?

But the Enquirer is certainly right that a whole lot of people are interested in this story, even if its coverage has been almost exclusively limited to the tabloids and blogs.

Via memeorandum, where the discussion will soon heat up.

Related at OTB:

• John Edwards Love Child Scandal
• John Edwards – Rielle Hunter Scandal Back
• Los Angeles Times Bans Edwards Scandal Story

Barack Obama has better-than-usual accommodations on his campaign plane.  Allison O’Keefe breaks the news on this important scandal for CBS News:

Barack Obama’s new campaign plane is nothing short of grand. Well, for the candidate that is.

Obama’s section of the plane rivals that of any first class. Recently the front cabin of the Boeing 757 was retrofitted to install four individual chairs that resemble La-Z-Boys. They are free-standing and made of plush leather with pockets on the sides. There is also a booth which seats four for a meeting or a meal.

His chair has his name and campaign logo embroidered on the back top — “Obama ‘08” on one line and “President” underneath. To one side is a small table stacked with newspapers ready for the candidate’s arrival. The table of the booth is always covered in snacks and cheese and is where Obama spends most of his time during flights meeting with staff and sitting for the occasional interview.

So, he’s into leather?  And Lazy?  And what kind of cheese is he eating?  Probably something French.

“Typically the candidate’s cabin is like business class — roomier and less chaotic than the staff and press areas, but still short of the accoutrements of a pro team’s charter,” says Politico’s Mike Allen, a frequent campaign flier.  After looking at a few photos of Obama’s cabin, Allen quipped, “Air Force One may seem a tad claustrophobic.”

Hah!  Good one!

Except that, um, looking at the photos, these look like pretty standard first class seats, albeit with fewer other seats in close proximity.  And it is, after all, his plane.  It’s not absolutely unreasonable for a candidate who has raised half a gazillion dollars in campaign contributions to splurge on creature comforts in order to arrive at his campaign stops a bit fresher.  Indeed, that would seem to be a great advantage.

Indeed, the only thing that struck me as even mildly scandalous about all this is that Obama had the temerity to emblazon his chair with “President.”  It’s a wee bit premature for that.  But, then, I looked at the photo of said seat:

That looks rather like a campaign bumper sticker.  Perhaps it should have a “For” in there but nobody who has seen campaign posters before is likely to conclude that he’s giving himself a promotion.

Story via memeorandum.  Photos by CBS/Allison Davis O’Keefe.  Annotations mine.

Weekend Caption Jam Linkfest. . .

• Rodney thought he was the valet.
• Wizbang needs an oil change.
• Wyatt Earp picked the wrong time of the month to give up sniffing glue.
• Willisms has Hans and Frans.
• Cowboy Blob is staying at the Bates Motel.
• Right Pundits is getting a kick out of it.
• Public Pondering is taking a message.
• Blonde Sagacity can solve it.
• The Gone Rick Motel has a balanced blog.
• bRight and Early made a Boo-Boo.
• Brainfuel just found out what Kemosabe means.
• Electric Venom will be singing soprano.

Other Humor:
Political Demotivation is not particularly motivated.
Icanhascheezburger welcomes you to the kitteh cult.
V the K always has the best pictures at Caption This!

To join in, start a Caption Contest at your blog, edit it to add a link to this post, and then send a TrackBack. If your blog doesn’t automatically generate one, use the Send TrackBack feature below. For more information, see this post.

The Toro Toro Toro Edition OTB Caption Contest^TM is now over.

REUTERS/Eloy Alonso (SPAIN)

✰ THE WINNERS ✰

First: Floyd – Suddenly $4.00 a gallon doesn’t seem so bad!

Second: DL – And they promised me that bulls never chase blue….

Third: Kenny – I knew I should have taken a left at Albuquerque!

HONORABLE MENTION

John425 – Manolete must be spinning over and over in his grave.

ℛODNEY’S BOTTOM OF THE BARREL

“Glad I got a Toro instead of a Lawnboy.”

Eventually Harry Potter came to enjoy the Quiddich rule change.

Tour de Lanced

The Thursday Contest didn’t bring a GPS.

Time for the Thursday OTB Caption Contest^TM

(AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Winners will be announced Monday PM