Clinton v. Bush: Dueling Photo Ops
First there were pictures of of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton chatting and having turkey with troops on her trip to Afghanistan and Iraq. Then, later on Thanksgiving Day, we get pictures of George W. Bush’s amazing, “top-secret,” trip to Bagdad to share Thanksgiving with the troops. It was reported that even Laura Bush didn’t know.
Clinton recently hinted that she might run for president in 2008. Bush’s last minute trip to Iraq may have been a successful attempt to demonstrate that when it comes to using U.S. troops for personal aggrandizement, he is still king. After being upstaged by Bush, Clinton must be thinking of catchy campaign slogan: Why wait ’till 2008? Or maybe she was thinking that before she got the taxpayers to buy her a Thanksgiving “fact-finding” (pre-presidential campaign) trip to the Middle East.
The European Press was not kind in their assessment of Bush’s surprise visit:
“The turkey has landed,” ran the front-page headline in the London daily Independent.
“George Bush becomes the first US president to visit Iraq in order to provide the television pictures required by his re-election campaign,” it said, noting that Hillary Rodham Clinton, “his undeclared Democratic opponent,” was on her way to Baghdad from Afghanistan.
The fact that Clinton and Bush would both use Amercian troops who are in harm’s way to further their political ambitions is enough to make some of us barf up our Thanksgiving dinner. If these two turn out to be our choices in 2004, barfing ourselves to death might be the only option.
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