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"Obama to Dispatch Female Surrogates" -- that NYT headline I flagged last night -- is now: "Obama Camp Turns to Clinton to Counter Palin."

I was struck, in the midst of my convention live-blogging, that the NYT had such an Obama-unfriendly headline. But now, they've friendlied it up. The original headline, "Obama to Dispatch Female Surrogates," put a picture in my head of Obama releasing an army of programmed fembots.

The new headline, "Obama Camp Turns to Clinton to Counter Palin," flips the image. It's not Obama, but the Obama camp -- a large, faceless group -- and now it's not a large, faceless group of women, but one particular woman, Hillary. Don't pin anything directly on Obama, and don't disrespect women by portraying them as nonindividuals.

And so suddenly, Hillary is the anti-Palin.

Hillary Is... the Palinator.

[ADDED: The image above, pointed to in the comments by Palladian, after I said: Kisses to the reader who Photoshops an image for that. Also, in the comments, was Ruth Anne's invitation: "And while you're photoshopping: Put a buff Sarah Connor body under the Sarah Palin face. No, wait. She's already done that herself."]

So now, let's read beyond the headlines:

Senator Barack Obama will increasingly lean on prominent Democratic women to undercut Gov. Sarah Palin and Senator John McCain, dispatching Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to Florida on Monday and bolstering his plan to deploy female surrogates to battleground states, Obama advisers said Thursday....

With the McCain-Palin team courting undecided female voters, including some who backed Mrs. Clinton in the Democratic primaries, Obama aides said they were counting on not only Mrs. Clinton but also Democratic female governors to rebut Ms. Palin ? and, by extension, Mr. McCain. Those governors include Janet Napolitano of Arizona and Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas.

Another poll:

Which headline was more accurate, and why did the NYT switch to the second headline?
	The first. Changed because it was unfriendly to Obama.
	The first. And websites change these things to add excitement or to balance with other headlines.
	The second. Changed for accuracy.
	The second. But websites just vary the headlines for excitement or balance.
pollcode.com free polls

Full post as published by Althouse on September 05, 2008 (boomark / email).