Y’know, for a little while yesterday I thought Bush might be an alright guy. Sure, it was probably a combination of a lack of sleep, surplus of wine, and an overall good natured feeling I get around holiday time, but I was touched when I heard that Bush flew to Iraq to spend Thanksgiving with the troops. And the whole “he had to keep it secret thing” added a whole level of excitement to it.

But I’ve slept on it and am now seeing it a lot more for the cynical publicity stunt that it is. I still think it was a decent gesture, but it’s too little too late for this president. He’s got to do a lot more than buy the troops dinner to make up for all the shit he’s pulled over the last year.

The media has been really playing up the whole “secret trip” thing, but they always add the vague warnings about security and terrorist threats. C’mon, cut through the jargon and just say it. The real reason the trip was secret was because everyone in Iraq wants to kill Bush.

If Bush’s secret trip to Iraq for a few hours makes him a hero, then Hillary Clinton’s trip damn-near makes her a goddess :

Former US first lady Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived in Baghdad hot on the heels of a lightning stealth visit by US President George W. Bush for a Thanksgiving dinner with US troops, officials said.

Clinton was due to spend just one day in the insurgency-ridden Iraqi capital after her visit to Afghanistan Thursday in which she spent Thanksgiving with troops there, said a coalition interior ministry official, Thomas Basile.

Before lunch, she met with senior officials of the Coalition Provisional Authority including US overseer Paul Bremer, said Clinton’s spokeswoman.

“She then had lunch with troops from her home state (New York) in the dining hall at the palace,” she said, referring to the city centre mansion of Saddam Hussein which is now the seat of the occupation administration.

“She was walking through the hall and people were coming up to her. It was a half-hour lunch,” the spokeswoman said.

Unlike the US president, who never even left the main military camp at Baghdad airport during his two-and-a-half hour stopover, Clinton then left the heavily fortified complex around the palace to go and visit troops.

That’s right, she went to Iraq and Afghanistan (a place that Bush can’t even be bothered to mention anymore, much less visit).