Krugman hammers away at w and company for including 27 pictures of w in the fiscal 2005 budget document:

By my count, this year’s budget contains 27 glossy photos of Mr. Bush. …
It was not ever thus. Bill Clinton’s budgets were illustrated with tables and charts, not with worshipful photos of the president being presidential.
The issue here goes beyond using the Government Printing Office to publish campaign brochures. In this budget, as in almost everything it does, the Bush administration tries to blur the line between reverence for the office of president and reverence for the person who currently holds that office.

My knee jerk reaction to Krugman’s column was that the budget document was something worthy of saddam or the great leader.
Well, a ‘quick’ look shows that there are 16-17 pictures of bush in the first 191 pages of the document (I got bored at that point…there was still a way to go until the end). And there were more pictures of others along with at least a few charts and graphs. As much as I’m tired of looking at bush this document seems more like a corporate marketing piece then a glorification of bush (of course I reserve my right to change my mind on this once I’ve read a few sections).
I suspect that the primary readers of the document will be economists, a few journalists and congressional staffers devoted to whoever is paying their salary. I’d rather the bushies had saved our money and simply given them the text and the numbers.

I suspect that w’s handler’s simply told him to pose with the man that

Investigators say… is the North American chief of Islamic Palestinian Jihad and that the Holy Land Foundation is a front for Hamas.

Well, the above picture was taken in early 2000 and Al-Arian hadn’t been indicted yet. But he also had not contributed any money to bush…so why were Mr and Mrs w all smiles here?

Saffuri dissolved NMBA in May 1998. Since leaving the AMC, he has severed public ties with his former friends and colleagues, joining forces instead with conservative activist Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform.
Together with Norquist, he established the Islamic Institute in 1998 with seed money provided in part by donors in Saudi Arabia and by the Government of Qatar.
During the 2000 election campaign, Saffuri became the head of Muslim Outreach for the Bush-Cheney campaign, and orchestrated a meeting between Governor George W. Bush and Al-Arian during a campaign stopover in south Florida.

Anything for a vote…..
Via Joe Fish.

Sadly, No! has detailed the key elements of mcclellan’s responses to questions about bush’s war record during today’s press gaggle.