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Bush Surprises Troops in BaghdadThe President's secretly travels to Iraq but some critics question need for trip and whether it was actually Bush that made the trip
"I'll bet John Kerry never flew right into a war zone for a turkey dinner," said White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan. The surprise visit was not announced to the press until Air Force 1 was off the ground. Upon arriving in Iraq, the President was rushed into a bunker where he was greeted by cheering troops and a large turkey. Bush posed for pictures with some of the soldiers and even allowed himself to be photographed holding the large turkey. The entire two hour event was captured on video, and clips are expected to be featured extensively in campaign ads that will appear on television next fall. According to the White House Press Secretary, Bush's trip was intended to "raise the morale" of troops that have been overextended in the desert war arena and who have little hope of returning home anytime soon. "These people, most of them between the ages of 19 and 24, have been away from home for months and aren't likely to come home - alive, that is - until late next spring," said McClellan. "We thought they really deserved to see their commander in chief dressed up in an army uniform posing with a turkey for an hour or so, just to reinforce the idea that he's an ordinary guy just like they are." The press was mostly excluded from the President's visit, raising some questions among seasoned reporters about the authenticity of the President's presence in Iraq. "We were given video footage taken by White House staffers and told it was the President with a very large turkey," said CNN's Miles O'Brien. "No one from our network, however, was allowed to actually photograph the President." A tape purported to have been taken by an anonymous source claims to show the President arriving in Iraq surrounded by secret service. However, the tape, aired on Al-Jazeera and shown throughout the Middle East, raises more questions than answers concerning the Bush visit. "The man that arrived in Iraq was definitetely not George Bush," said Al-Jazeera Baghdad bureau chief Ali-Akhbar Mohammad. "We think it was a double, planted by the Americans to make it look like it was Bush. Most people here think Bush is too much of a scardy cat to show up in Baghdad."
The White House denied any use of a double. "It's insulting to think we'd try to pull something like that" said a disbelieving McClellan. "They did exactly pull something like that," said Al-Jazeera's Mohammad. "It's just like in that movie 'History of the World,' where King Louis has the piss boy pretend to be the king when the crowds are rioting. What a funny movie." The President - or a reasonable facsimile of him - met with about 200 troops during his brief visit. There was a plan for him to meet with some of the "liberated" Iraqis but, sadly, the White House claimed that none of them could be located on such short notice. |
First, there was the landing on the aircraft carrier, Abraham Lincoln. Now, President Bush has again reaffirmed his manhood in an unprecedented Thanksgiving Day visit with the troops in Baghdad.
Indeed, the photos released by Al-Jazeera seem to reveal that the man who visited Baghdad on Thanksgiving Day may not have been the United States President but may have been actor Timothy Bottoms, famous for playing the President on Comedy Central's "That's My Bush!" television show.