The Imperial I: I cringed when the president, speaking about Iraq, broke into the first person the other day: "I firmly planted the flag of liberty, for all to see that the United States of America hears their concerns and believes in their aspirations." From the guy who still can't account for his absence from his National Guard service 30 years ago, the guy who launched a war on shoddy intelligence, a guy who hasn't personally planted any flags in war-torn soil, a guy who can't seem to get a flight-suit on correctly, it's a bit galling to hear such an overt, Iwo Jima-style metaphor. If any freedom flag has been planted in Iraq--a dubious argument, at this point--perhaps it might be more appropriate to give credit for it to the 1,425 military men and women who died there rather than to a president that can't seem to grasp the notion of the communal "we"?

[Illustration by Craig Foster, from Joshua Berger's gallery of artist statements against the war, Anti-war.us. ]