According to AP:

White House counselor Dan Barlett said Monday that Bush’s photographs in the company of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff amount to a coincidence and shouldn’t be interpreted any more seriously than that.

Other photographic coincidences:

1. Picture of Abramoff putting $100 bills into Bush’s g-string with his teeth

2. Picture of Abramoff handing Bush an oversized novelty check for $1 million with memo line reading “bribe”

3. Picture of Abramoff with Bush, inscribed: “To Jack—thanks for the bribe!”

4. Picture of Dan Bartlett with Bush, inscribed: “To Dan—thanks for lying about my sordid relationship with Jack Abramoff!”

5. Twenty year-old picture of Abramoff shaking hands with Donald Rumsfeld in Baghdad.

Update from Tom: as luck would have it, I was able to track down one of the photos Jonathan mentions. Somebody tell Drudge.

Greg’s new rainy day fun game, repurposing Mallard Fillmore strips, reminds me of the time I was at a conference of editorial page editors, back in the early nineties, and met an editor — I’m pretty sure she was from the Washington Times — who was one of that strip’s earliest champions. Her description of Mallard Fillmore remains lodged in my mind: “It’s like Doonesbury — but conservative and with a duck!

I don’t know why that still makes me smile, but it does.