Having blown it with the “Mission Accomplished” carrier landing in the dangerous waters a few miles off the California Coast, and in need of a less embarrassing visual for the 2004 campaign, George has been busy spending our tax money gadding about for Photo-Ops. He spent a fortune on his security for a chance to do his patented “I’ve got a painful rash in my armpits” walk between QE II and His Royal Gonads, Prince Philip. And now, ladies and gentlemen, the courageous Thanksgiving Day dash into Baghdad to lift the spirits of the troops, accomplished after an elaborate deception of sending planes in different directions and a veil of secrecy to ensure that (and we must have some gratitude for it) Dick Cheney does not become, in title as well as by influence, the Prez.
©2003, UrbisMedia
Billed and publicized as a “morale builder” for the troops one has to wonder what those who he has unnecessarily put in harm’s way think about the guy whose daddy got him shoved to the top of the Reserve list to avoid any contact with Viet Nam, and who spent practically an entire day in a hole in the ground somewhere in Nebraska(?) while fire fighters and rescue workers lost their lives on
9-11, was doing giving pep talks to the people who are doing his fighting and dying for him. The troops weren’t expecting turkey on Thanksgiving, but they sure got one this time.
George was back home in a flash, with plenty of stills and footage for the campaign, arriving almost surrepticiously as those caskets now practically smuggled home from Iraq that he no longer allows the press to photograph. Sorry no Photo-Ops for casulaties.
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©2003, James A. Clapp (UrbisMedia Ltd. Pub. 12.2.2003)