The Situation Room (photograph)
Encyclopedia
White House photographer Pete Souza
Pete Souza
Pete Souza is an American photojournalist and the current Chief Official White House photographer for President Barack Obama and Director of the White House Photography Office...

 captured a noted photograph in the White House Situation Room
White House Situation Room
The White House Situation Room is a conference room and intelligence management center in the basement of the West Wing of the White House. It is run by the National Security Council staff for the use of the President of the United States and his advisors to monitor and deal...

 at 4:06 PM on May 1, 2011. The photograph shows the President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

, Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...

, along with his national security team, receiving live updates of Operation Neptune Spear, which led to the killing of Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...

, the leader of al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...

.

Background

The photograph received much publicity after the news of Osama bin Laden's death was announced. CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...

 called it a "photo for the ages" and drew comparisons to other famous images of U.S. presidents such as Dewey Defeats Truman
Dewey Defeats Truman
"Dewey Defeats Truman" was a famously inaccurate banner headline on the front page of the Chicago Tribune on November 3, 1948, the day after incumbent United States President Harry S. Truman beat Republican challenger and Governor of New York Thomas E...

. Former White House photographer Eric Draper
Eric Draper
Eric Draper was the White House Photo Director and personal photographer for U.S. President George W. Bush. Draper worked for the Associated Press as a news photographer prior to joining the White House....

 said that the photo captured "a defining moment in history very well." The photograph has also been the subject of commentary by historians and body language experts.

The photograph was taken during the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound as Obama and his National Security team monitored the status of the raid. As such the image has been most noted for its intensity. Hillary Clinton, pictured in the photograph, described the moment as "the most intense 38 minutes of my life." The Daily Mail reported that Obama was able to watch the exact moment that bin Laden was killed, but Leon Panetta
Leon Panetta
Leon Edward Panetta is the 23rd and current United States Secretary of Defense, serving in the administration of President Barack Obama since 2011. Prior to taking office, he served as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency...

 said this was not the case.

People

The following people are pictured, from left to right:

(seated)
  1. Vice President
    Vice President of the United States
    The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...

     Joe Biden
    Joe Biden
    Joseph Robinette "Joe" Biden, Jr. is the 47th and current Vice President of the United States, serving under President Barack Obama...

  2. President
    President of the United States
    The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

     Barack Obama
    Barack Obama
    Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...

  3. Brigadier General Marshall B. "Brad" Webb
    Marshall B. Webb
    Marshall Bradley "Brad" Webb is a United States Air Force brigadier general who serves as the current Assistant Commanding General of Joint Special Operations Command . Webb was involved in the operation to kill Osama bin Laden...

    , Assistant Commanding General, Joint Special Operations Command
  4. Denis McDonough
    Denis McDonough
    Denis R. McDonough is a foreign policy advisor in the Obama Administration. He currently serves as Deputy National Security Advisor.-Early life and education:...

    , Deputy National Security Advisor
  5. Hillary Rodham Clinton
    Hillary Rodham Clinton
    Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton is the 67th United States Secretary of State, serving in the administration of President Barack Obama. She was a United States Senator for New York from 2001 to 2009. As the wife of the 42nd President of the United States, Bill Clinton, she was the First Lady of the...

    , Secretary of State
  6. Robert Gates
    Robert Gates
    Dr. Robert Michael Gates is a retired civil servant and university president who served as the 22nd United States Secretary of Defense from 2006 to 2011. Prior to this, Gates served for 26 years in the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council, and under President George H. W....

    , Secretary of Defense

(standing)
  1. Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
    Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
    The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is by law the highest ranking military officer in the United States Armed Forces, and is the principal military adviser to the President of the United States, the National Security Council, the Homeland Security Council and the Secretary of Defense...

  2. Tom Donilon, National Security Advisor
    National Security Advisor (United States)
    The Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, commonly referred to as the National Security Advisor , serves as the chief advisor to the President of the United States on national security issues...

  3. William M. Daley
    William M. Daley
    William Michael “Bill” Daley is an American lawyer and former banker and is the current White House Chief of Staff to President Barack Obama. He served as U.S...

    , Chief of Staff
    White House Chief of Staff
    The White House Chief of Staff is the highest ranking member of the Executive Office of the President of the United States and a senior aide to the President.The current White House Chief of Staff is Bill Daley.-History:...

  4. Tony Blinken
    Tony Blinken
    Antony John 'Tony' Blinken is the advisor for national security policy for Joe Biden, Vice President of the United States.He served previously as a Senior Fellow at the Center for New American Security, Democratic Staff Director of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations , and a member of the...

    , National Security Advisor to the Vice President
  5. Audrey Tomason, Director for Counterterrorism for the National Security Council.
  6. John O. Brennan
    John O. Brennan
    John O. Brennan is chief counterterrorism advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama; officially his title is Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, and Assistant to the President...

    , Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism
  7. James R. Clapper
    James R. Clapper
    James R. Clapper, Jr. is a retired lieutenant general in the United States Air Force and is currently the Director of National Intelligence. He was previously dual-hatted as the first Director of Defense Intelligence within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence alongside the position...

    , Director of National Intelligence
  8. A man in a black suit with a white tie: "John", a CIA analyst who was "the first to put in writing [in summer 2010] that the CIA might have a legitimate lead on finding bin Laden".


Hillary Clinton holds her right hand over her mouth in apparent anxiety over the outcome of the raid. She later said that she was suffering from a spring allergy and was likely suppressing a cough.

Analysis

Some historians have commented on the historical significance of the photograph, particularly its depiction of the crossing of gender and racial boundaries. Lehigh University
Lehigh University
Lehigh University is a private, co-educational university located in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley region of the United States. It was established in 1865 by Asa Packer as a four-year technical school, but has grown to include studies in a wide variety of disciplines...

 political science professor Saladin Ambar said that the picture suggests "a new American landscape that we're still crossing into." He continued "When Obama was elected, there were some people who thought that we had crossed a racial threshold. What his presidency is revealing is that there are many crossings."

The photograph has also been noted to depict a change in presidential leadership style. Historian Clarence Lusane said that past presidents have felt a need to project "machismo" and "swagger." Meredith College
Meredith College
Meredith College is a liberal arts women's college located in Raleigh, North Carolina. For the 2010-2011 academic year, there were approximately 2,300 students enrolled, including about 350 graduate students, making Meredith the largest women's college in the southeastern United States...

 sociology professor Lori Brown said it is significant however, that Obama is neither in the center of the room nor in the tallest chair. Political analyst Cheryl Contee said "Obama's willingness to be photographed without the typical Oval Office swagger gives birth to a new type of swagger." She said that the image shows Obama's leadership style as a collaborator.

The New York Times commented on Clinton's expression in the photograph, writing, "She is what the French critic Roland Barthes
Roland Barthes
Roland Gérard Barthes was a French literary theorist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. Barthes' ideas explored a diverse range of fields and he influenced the development of schools of theory including structuralism, semiotics, existentialism, social theory, Marxism, anthropology and...

 called the 'punctum,' the not necessarily conspicuous detail that gives a photograph its emotional resonance." They also stated the mystery of the photograph—what are they looking at?—was analogous to the uncertainty of Western democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...

's relationship with Islamic militant terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...

.

Ambar stated that the photograph also shows how entrenched women have become in U.S. politics; Hillary Clinton and Audrey Tomason are in the photograph, while the similar photograph of John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....

 and his staff during the Cuban Missile Crisis
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation among the Soviet Union, Cuba and the United States in October 1962, during the Cold War...

 does not show any women. Lori Brown said in a CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...

article that the photograph also shows how women have made progress in U.S. political life, although Brown said that Clinton's visible reaction dulled the impact somewhat, because women "are often more physical in their emotional responses and in a 'power situation' it may not seem as acceptable."

Until the publishing of the photograph, Audrey F. Tomason, a woman identified by the White House as the Director for Counterterrorism, was unknown to the public. After the publication of the photo, because of the apparent proximity to U.S. President Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...

 seen in the photograph, various rumors appeared regarding what her role is. She also gained notability as she was the only woman, other than Hillary Clinton, in the photograph. She also appeared to be the only person in the photograph under 40 years of age. Alexis Madrigal, a senior editor at The Atlantic said that Tomason "appeared to be an outlier in a room filled with the Administration's heaviest hitters." Tommy Vietor, a National Security Council
National Security Council
A National Security Council is usually an executive branch governmental body responsible for coordinating policy on national security issues and advising chief executives on matters related to national security...

 spokesperson, said that there were other young staffers in the room, but Tomason was the only one in the photograph. Vietor said "[t]here were at least half a dozen people with similar profiles in the immediate vicinity where that photo was taken." Madrigal added "The luck of the camera's gaze means that history will be able to place Tomason at a decisive moment in war on terrorism, but not her colleagues."

Alteration in an ultra-Orthodox newspaper

Di Tzeitung, ​a Hasidic newspaper, edited the image to remove Clinton and Tomason due to its policy of not running photographs with women because of "modesty laws". The newspaper subsequently apologized for altering the image in breach of the terms of its release. In addition De Voch, a weekly Hasidic magazine from Brooklyn, also edited out the women.

The editing of images of women out of photographs is a common practice of ultra-Orthodox newspapers. And while some interpreted this practice as a result of inequality to women's rights in Hasidic Judaism, Di Tzeitung, in its statement, said it was done only because of modesty reasons, and should in no way be seen as degrading of women.

External links

  • P050111PS-0210 on Flickr
    Flickr
    Flickr is an image hosting and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community that was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and acquired by Yahoo! in 2005. In addition to being a popular website for users to share and embed personal photographs, the service is widely used by bloggers to...

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