He who lives by the photo op, dies by the photo op

It's not exactly news that George W. Bush cares more about the way things look than the way things are. The war in Iraq is proof of that if any were needed; he tries everything he can to make it look like something other than the massive screwup it is. And he keeps the flag-draped coffins hidden.

So you can understand that what absolutely scares the living shit out of him is the idea that there might be photos out there that would make him look bad. George Bush understands that most of the country either doesn't or can't read, and he uses it to his advantage. If more people either could or did read, there's no way Bush gets elected even once, let alone twice. But everybody knows how to look at pictures.

When the Abramoff scandal began to blow up, White House aides were quick to deny that the president knew, or even remembered having met him. This was the story they were afraid of:

As details poured out about the illegal and unseemly activities of Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, White House officials sought to portray the scandal as a Capitol Hill affair with little relevance to them. Peppered for days with questions about Abramoff's visits to the White House, press secretary Scott McClellan said the now disgraced lobbyist had attended two huge holiday receptions and a few "staff-level meetings" that were not worth describing further. "The President does not know him, nor does the President recall ever meeting him," McClellan said.

The President's memory may soon be unhappily refreshed. TIME has seen five photographs of Abramoff and the President that suggest a level of contact between them that Bush's aides have downplayed. While TIME's source refused to provide the pictures for publication, they are likely to see the light of day eventually because celebrity tabloids are on the prowl for them. And that has been a fear of the Bush team's for the past several months...

Now, if we had any democrats who were actually interested in...oh, what is that word...oh yeah, fighting, instead of triangulating, calculating and equivocating and so frightened to offend? They might know what to do with a golden opportunity like this.

But since we don't, we should probably just start thinking about which denomination of currency we want to see the President's face on. Since he is, after all, a great and good man.