Ooops - Building Behind McInsane Was Walter Reed Middle School (Instead Of Walter Reed Hospital)

Walter Reed building behind McInsane last night was Walter Reed Middle School in North Hollywood, California, instead of the hospital.

A lot of people were asking tonight: what the hell was that mansion up behind John McCain tonight during the first part of the speech? As I noted below, the TV close-ups only showed McCain's head against the grass in the picture, which made it look like he was reprising his famed green screen performance. And when they panned out, it looked like McCain was showing off one of his mansions.




So it's not a mansion, but a middle school. But that still doesn't answer the question of why they picked this picture to have him standing in front of -- when I would imagine that 99.9% of the US population would have no idea what they were looking at.

(ed.note: Thanks to TPM Readers JR and EK for cluing us in.)

Late Update: I'm surprised this hadn't occurred to me. But several readers have suggested that perhaps one of the tech geeks charged with setting up the audio/visual bells and whistles for the evening was tasked with getting pictures of Walter Reed Army Medical Center but goofed and got this instead. At first I thought, No, that's ridiculous. This is a major political party with big time professionals putting this together. Nothing is left to chance. I mean, is this the RNC or a scene out Spinal Tap or Waiting for Guffman? I still have a bit of a hard time believing they're quite that incompetent. But when you figure in what appears to be the utter lack of any logic for this school being behind McCain and the fact that it has 'Walter Reed' in its name, I'm really not sure you can discount this possibility.

(ed.note: Special bonus snark: That's not stock photo keyword searching we can believe in.)

more at:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/213806.php

Someone needs to photoshop that whole shot with a caption at the bottom:


McCain, why doesn't your staff know what Walter Reed Hospital looks like? Why do you hate our troops?

palm trees...

:shrug:

I thought it looked like my school! Too funny!

:rofl:

I almost posted about it but figured it couldn't be....no one would make that stupid mistake. Guess I was wrong!

My wife and i looked at each other and said :wtf:

too funny that they are this inept. this is going to be a story or the story from the convention. Katrina must have distracted them too much.

Funny also that by day three they hadn't figured out that the backdrop thing wasn't working out. I mean they put mcsame in front of a green screen for most of his speech. Have fun with that all you aspiring film makers.

Just really a referendum on the organizational skills of the republican party in general. Contrasted against Obama they appear to be the keystone cops.

since looking at him with his yellow teeth makes my skin crawl a bit..

What were they trying to do? Did they make the stage smaller with the screen (to make him feel more comfortable?) but then used outdoor photos so it didn't seem as small to the viewer? Did the photos change? I'd read that they were setting up a 'town hall' look but I don't really get this.

and indifference to the suffering of actual Americans? Cripes.

It should be an obama comercial.

Enough! Enough of the fake patriotism and faux support of our troops.Enough with the yellow bumper stickers on your cars and the votes against veterans benefits.


It encapsulates the republican party perfectly.

... http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x6940557

And the techies that didn't think about how awful the green screen and blue screen effect would look behind JSM III... At times with the blue background he looked like Blue Man Group.