Thursday, October 04, 2007

Condi Leaves Ladygarden Dangerously Vulnerable for Lebanese Visitor


From left to right, Chief of Protocol, Nancy Goodman Brinker, Vice President Dick Cheney, Deputy National Security Advisor Elliott Abrams, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, stand in the back together during a meeting between President Bush and Parliamentary Majority Leader in Lebanon, Saad Hariri, in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, Oct. 4, 2007 in Washington. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)


What gives? Condi usually likes to fold her hands discretely over her girlparts during awkward, free-standing photo-ops like this. Did Manners Czarina Brinker instruct her to mimic her subservient pose to make their Middle-Easterner feel more comfy? Ew, I don't like her standing like that so close to Cheney. Or, OMG, Hadley! Ew!

Also, it's fun to speculate why Brinker is present at all. Has George been particularly rude lately? I mean more than usual?

12 comments:

HRH King Friday XIII, Ret. said...

It's almost like the movie poster for the Breakfast Club!

Five strangers with nothing in common, except each other... and a stupid, stupid man.

Distributorcap said...

since when can miss manners-brinker wear pants!

ladies dont wear pants! bad manner

Anonymous said...

OT, Princess --

It looks like you're gonna have Larry Craig
(R-Tosser) to kick around for awhile longer.

Yippee!

-- desertwind

Matthew Hubbard said...

It's possible that Ms. Brinker is there for a "bathe her and send her to my tent" encounter with someone else in the picture.

Zero points for guessing who.

Anonymous said...

Oh boy!

Elliot Abrams of Iran-Contra infamy is almost as short as Secretary Gates.

BARF BAG ALERT: Here are some of Abrams's ghastly institutional affiliations:

American Committee for Peace in Chechnya
American Jewish Committee
National Advisory Council
Center for Security Policy
Committee for the Free World: Member of 1985 conference
Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)
Ethics and Public Policy Center
Heritage Foundation
Francisco Marroquin Foundation
Hudson Institute
Middle East Forum (home of Richard Pipes and Campus Watch)
Nicaraguan Resistance Foundation
Project for the New American Century (PNAC)
US Commission on International Religious Freedom

Anonymous said...

What is this? The latest exhibit in the imperial capital's wax museum?

Anonymous said...

Thanks anonymous - my first thought was also that this was a particularly Tussaudian shot.

And I'm totally on board with distributorcap - what is the world coming to when our Chief of Protocol slouches around the White House in an ill-fitting white-after-Labor-Day jacket and slax? Jackie Kennedy (a pale copy of whose hair Brinker appears to be sporting) wouldn't have been caught dead in those rags - not least because it seems entirely possible from this shot that she's wearing black sneakers. She looks like a vice-principal at a surburban junior high.

Which is I guess appropriate given the minds of those whose protocol she's supervising.

But still - the great days of Protocol Chiefs like Letitia Baldridge and Shirley Temple Black seem very far away...

Anonymous said...

Dick looks like a pit bull fixin' to jump off his leash and attack.

dguzman said...

I thought at first glance it was a mirror/double-image shot, with Condi and Mr. Closed-body-language on one hand and Pants Lady and Big Dick in the mirror as their Dorian Gray-type inner souls. Then I saw Baldy Abrams in the middle and really freaked out for a second. Still trying to recover.

Civic Center said...

Pablo Martinez Monsivais is god. That is one of the greatest, scariest photos ever.

Anonymous said...

I'm surprised Pablo Martinez Monsivais got anywhere near these geeks with a name that foreign-sounding.
I'm a journalist and this is called in the business a "Castro shot."
Line 'em up and shoot 'em.

CD said...

Is it just me or do their postures look like that of children in this photo?