Sure are a lot of definitions using resemblance to define likeness.
"Whoever knowingly displays any printed or other likeness of the great seal of the United States, or of the seals of the President
or the Vice President of the United States,"
Sorry, only one definition matters:
3. A pictorial, graphic, or sculptured representation of something; an image.
It is not a pictorial, graphic, or sculptured representation of the seal. Period. That's the meaning it is being used in, legally.
Sure, you can deliberately misread the law, but the intent wasn't to disallow people from using anything that looks similar to the seal (see: 1st amendment) it was to stop people from using the likeness of the seal.
The point is that that plaque is just another example of Obama presuming a bit too much. It is a gift to his opposition to add to a long list of examples of arrogance and will be used as such. He writes Mccain's campaign ads for him.
As one who oppose him I am grateful for his help but am stunned that his supporters think this is no big deal. I can only conclude that they have no idea of what these kinds of things can have on an election. Think Dukakis in his tank or Kerry on his wind surf board. It is manna from heaven to opposition campaign strategists.
I am so tired of self-rightous Republicans who are all up in arms the minute a democrat does something they don't like.
Obama isn't presuming jack. He's running for president. That gives him pretty good odds that he might be president. Using a symbol that reminds people that he's running for president when he's running for president isn't presumption.
As for McCain, Obama doesn't write his ads for him. The usual suspects in the neocon insanity machine do, and those spin doctors have been practicing on their tube-fed babies so long that they have no idea how to communicate with people who aren't buying their pap. I think Americans have woken up to that garbage, and by and large when McCain loses I think it will be taken as the last dying cry of that Republican claptrap machine.
I mean this battle scripts itself. On one side Obama - young, principled, different. On the other side McCain - old, pandering, and always has that air of slight senility. Why was he singing "bomb bomb Iran?" Was it a bad attempt at a joke, or did he just forget it wasn't 1960?
It's out with the old, in with the new. The old has gotten us into a 3 trillion dollar war, economic instability, a plunging dollar, and the worst privacy and legal crises of the past few decades.
So lets face it, all your outrage is coming to naught. You're part of an old guard that has done nothing but harm to this country, and the ideals and beliefs of the George Bush presidency will be swept out like any other trash. Look at how badly the conservative war machine has screwed up recently. "Baby Mama" "terrorist fist pump" they're trying the same old tactics they did in 2000 and 2004, and they're failing, because people have wised up. That old guard is dead.
So continue to moralize and sit on your high horse and cry. I'll laugh, because the next 4 years are going to be very bitter for you.