Bush's full Hillary eclipse.

Dueling Ops It was Baghdad a-go-go for Bush and Hillary. All we get from Iraq is ghastly news, and for weeks the Bush administration has said that the media does not emphasize the positive. The Bushies have complained that the press reports a lot on the bombings, the deaths and the protests, but doesn't report on how happy many people are. Attacks on Americans are declining, the White House claims (which belies those media reports), and the security situation gets steadily under control. It's only a few rogue guerrillas anyway?no more than 5000, says Gen. John P. Abizaid, the senior American commander in the Middle East, as opposed the 50,000 figure leaked in a CIA report a few weeks ago. Whatever the number, it's nothing much to worry about, as we'll be handing everything over to the Iraqis in a matter of months anyway. All will then be just fine, as a new democracy is born.

If that's the case, why did the president of the United States fly into Iraq under cover of night in a cloak-and-dagger escapade that had George W. Bush and Condoleezza Rice actually disguised in baseball caps at one point? And why is Baghdad safe enough for a former first lady, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, to announce her trip there two months prior and then, accompanied by secret service, spend more than 10 hours meeting with Iraqi leaders and mingling with citizens, but not safe enough for the president to make a quick tour of the city?

Iraq is either a) so totally in chaos that the president couldn't make his trip public the way that, say, Lyndon Johnson announced his trip to Vietnam during the height of the bloody and dangerous war there or; b) though Iraq is very unstable, it's not a situation in which the trip couldn't be announced nor Bush couldn't have gotten out more, but the Bushies are using the "security" issue as a way to once again orchestrate a photo-op and control media coverage.

Either way, it smells as skanky as everything else that Karl Rove touches. The White House denied that the trip was politically motivated, but, according to the AFP, Condoleezza Rice "stopped short of saying that political adviser Karl Rove did not know about the trip."

It's nice that Bush gave some beleaguered troops in Iraq a much-needed lift. It's what we'd want any president to do. It's also an issue this president has been under fire about in recent weeks, not having gone to one memorial service or funeral of dead soldiers or bringing any media attention to the more than 2000 wounded servicemen and women. Even if Bush made this visit to blunt that criticism?and take some bite out of his now pathetic "Mission Accomplished" landing on the aircraft carrier back in May?it was a positive gesture.

But those who've claimed this was a brave action are completely deluding themselves. If anyone was brave it was Hillary Clinton?who voted for the war resolution, let's not forget?and Sen. Jack Reed, allowing their itineraries to be known and traveling the streets of Baghdad. Lying to the vast majority of the media and the public about your whereabouts, not telling your own parents (yes, George Sr. and Barbara were apparently in the dark) and then flying in, with the lights out, for a two-hour airport stopover just doesn't strike me as gutsy. Nor does it prove in any way that Iraq is safe?as some tv pundits actually were saying Bush's trip would telegraph to the American people?particularly since a U.S. soldier was killed in Mosul within hours of Bush's visit.

Nobody, least of all yellow-bellied Democrats, wants to even remotely appear as if he or she doesn't support the troops, but it's certainly not wrong to point to Bush's political motivations here. If this administration had a track record of reaching out to people in need, with the president taking political as well as physical risks, his motivations would be less glaring. Unlike Bush, Bill Clinton visited the victims of just about every disaster imaginable, from hurricanes to forest fires. Some on the right used to claim it was all political, but because Clinton always did it, from the beginning of his presidency until the end?and connected with people on a personal level wherever he went?his defenders could claim this was just his personality.

Bush, on the other hand, not only has often stayed away from visiting disaster scenes, but his aides have often claimed that, unlike Clinton, it's because he didn't want to exploit them for political purposes. Along similar lines, when I wrote a column a few weeks ago about Cher's visit to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Bethesda?a few miles from Bush's home?and her anger at Bush and Cheney for not bringing media attention to the many limbless soldiers in the hospital, angry Bush supporters wrote in. Some claimed Bush had quietly met with the soldiers, giving some of them Purple Hearts, but that, unlike some other president, he didn't want to bring cameras to the event to exploit the issue for his own political ends.

If that's true, then why didn't Bush leave the reporters behind when he flew into Baghdad last Thursday? And why were only a select few members of the press chosen, when many more could have been brought along? The fact that Fox News was the only television network invited?and that its producers put the entire staff on full alert?while those communists at CNN were sent on a wild turkey chase, let to believe all the action (or non-action) was happening down in Crawford, certainly tells you about the White House's priorities and how it manages the news.

The reporters who were chosen for the trip were told not to tell anyone about their whereabouts, including their families and friends, or their employers (unless they saw them in person). They were thereby colluding with the White House, and in most instances even lying to their own employers while they went on a supposedly dangerous mission (except for Fox News' Jim Angle, who, curiously, broke the rule and did tell his producer, in a telephone conversation, so that the network could get everyone into play).

Meanwhile, the Bush Baghdad airport drop-in did the trick of blunting Hillary Clinton's full-fledged visit, which would have been the only front-page news that day. Was that part of the Rovian plan too?

"A source familiar with the planning of her visit said the administration was informed in late September that she would go," the AFP reported about Clinton's visit. It was only a few weeks later, in mid-October, according to reports, that the White House began planning Bush's top-secret trip.