The Smile / The Handshake

So it turns out Jack Abramoff (Grand Abramoff Tarkin?) is the one passing around the photos* of himself and President Bush, in the wake of the White House's tepid refusals to say whether those photos existed or not. But these photos are not yet to be published. Why?

He has, of course, pled guilty already to the Justice Department. But it does raise a question in my mind at least as to whether Abramoff is maybe sort of sending some sort of signal out here: “Hey, I’ve got this stuff.” Maybe he wants something from somebody at the White House, or he wants someone at the White House not to do something, and just sort of subtly playing with people here. - Michael Isikoff, Newsweek

So he's trying to cut a deal by force, essentially? "Help me out or I set up you the bomB."

Earlier, Isikoff commented "As a general rule, if you’re the president … you don’t like pictures out there of you with convicted felons."

And isn't that the truth? All those incriminating handshake photos with people who turned out to be dirty....

We already know about this one, right?



And then there's this kiss with Hillary and Suha Arafat, just before Mrs. Arafat shoved her feet down both their mouths. Now Hillary tries to be pro-Israel to get the New York vote, and I bet she wishes this had never happened.



But here's one for you to puzzle over... can you guess which embarassing photo this is?



No peeking at the html! ; )


* as an aside - someone really should tell thinkprogress that "shopping" also means "photoshoping," which I wouldn't put past Abramoff at this point... ; )