Meanwhile, back at Prairie
Chapel Ranch, Bush swings his gun — not his gun, Hussein’s gun — and
Bartholomeo continues: “The President’s ratings soared again, deservedly, to
precedented heights, although the liberal media were never able to forgive the
president his success, and carped about the alleged absence of weapons of mass
destruction, the casualties of Iraqi civilians in the ensuing civil war, the
cost of the war, the casualties on the American side, the manipulation of
war-supporting intelligence, and the Abu Ghraib prison event, when a few
inappropriate pictures of prisoners were leaked to the media in detriment to
the security of our troops…”
Betty gives way to a
photograph of a figure tiptoeing on top of a tiny box, covered by a soiled bluish
sheet ragged at the hem, the arms half-stretched sideways, the open palms turned
to the camera, gnarled wires connected to both hands and liaised back to some cabling
on the wall, the head covered with a pointed black hood. There is an eerie composition
to the photograph; it balances the suggestion of an electrocution with the
floppiness of a practical joke.
The retired first couple knows
this picture, of course; the entire world knows it, it has served as an icon of
resistance against the War in Iraq. Even the mainstream Economist, a supporter of the war, has put it on its cover with the cry: “Resign, Rumsfeld.”
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