Clinton's "NIG": Revolting Outrage or Shocking Incompetence?

There's peripheral controversy over Hillary Clinton's "Who do you want answering the phone?" campaign ad.

The letters "NIG" appear on the child's pajamas in the ad, and there's speculation of a deliberate subliminal message being sent.

Ann Althouse queries, "Why are the letters 'NIG' on the child's pajamas?":

You can see the commercial at the link, and the pajamas in question are on display during seconds 11 and 12. On pausing, staring, and thinking, I believe these are pajamas that say "good night" all over them, but the letters "NIG" are set apart by a fold in the fabric.

Is the campaign responsible for sending out a subliminal message to stimulate racist thoughts in the unsuspecting viewer? It is either deliberate or terribly incompetent. There is no other writing on screen until the very end of the commercial, and if letters appear in anyplace in a commercial, they should be carefully selected letters. Certainly, each image is artfully composed and shot and intended to deliver an emotional impact. Could this be a mere lapse?

In 2000, there was a much-discussed commercial for George W. Bush that displayed the letters "RATS":

The announcer starts by lauding George W. Bush's proposal for dealing with prescription drugs, and criticizes the plan being offered by Vice President Al Gore. Fragments of the phrase ''bureaucrats decide'' -- deriding Mr. Gore's proposal -- then dance around the screen....

The intense scrutiny of the "RATS" ad heightens the assumption that presidential candidates these days pay close attention to any incidental lettering that appears in their ads. "RATS" as part of the word "bureaucrats" in an ad criticizing Gore's prescription plan is nothing compared to "NIG" isolated on a sleeping child's shoulder in an ad intended to create doubts about a black man's ability to take an urgent phone call at 3 a.m., an ad authorized by a candidate who has already heard accusations that her campaign is slipping racial material into its attacks on her opponent.

This is either a revolting outrage or shocking incompetence.

Or Clintonian Machiavellianism.

I'm not shocked in the least, although I would say that "NIG" is not normally used as an abbreviation for the n-word.

NIG's probably just as Althouse surmises: a partial glimpse of letters in a "good night" pattern on the kid's bedtime garment. Makes for excellent political outrage, in any case!