The Barack Obama presidential campaign caused quite a kerfluffle last week, as conservative critics lambasted him for a new campaign logo (above left), an eagle design that bore a likeness to the official POTUS seal (above right). For those who are interested, VERO POSSUMUS is a loose translation of ‘Yes, We Can’, the Obama campaign’s clarion call. Obama was labeled arrogant and presumptuous for the artwork, and some conservative publications – The Weekly Standard for example – wondered if the logo was illegal, according to United States congressional law Section 18. Right wing bloggers like Michelle Malkin, not known for passing up a chance to feign outrage at Democrats, had a field day, lambasting the new logo as a clear sign of Obama’s humility, or rather lack thereof. In response to the mounting heat, the campaign quietly dropped the logo from further showings over the weekend.
Republican hypocrisy?
Personally, I view the Obama logo design flap as a tempest in a tea-cup, with yet another non-issue sucking the oxygen out of important election discussion. I’d also view the Right Wing’s indignation as having a little more credibility if the National Republican Senatorial Committee didn’t feature three Presidential Seal knock-offs as logos for their various task forces and PACs.
See here for more background on the Obama logo design.
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Sigh. That didn’t take long…
I know it’s an old issue, but this is unbelievably stupid. Elections have consequences. Even if McCain won, he’d be allowed to create his own logo. The seal has to be approved by the white house communication dept, but no one asked (not even the media) if that had happened. That being said, He would have LEGALLY been allowed to use the POTUS seal, even if he changed one pixel of the image…that’s how copyrighted images work in this country….It takes practically nothing to start stupid fights…..
Changing the presidential seal isn’t illegal because it is copyrighted, it’s because its the presidential seal. He was not president. Look it up in the United States congressional law Section 18. Besides, you cannot change a copyrighted image at all, even by a pixel.