Not exactly a banner day

A Hanging Offense

By Rick Horowitz

This is the week they have lunch at their desks. Not that anybody would recognize them if they ventured out for a bite somewhere along Pennsylvania Avenue; they're part of the army of anonymous public servants that keeps any administration running. Their names are in the paper as often as their pictures are -- which is to say, never. And they like it that way. They like it just fine.

Still, going out to lunch seems vaguely celebratory, when the very idea of celebrating anything this week puts knots the size of basketballs in their stomachs.

This is "Mission Accomplished" week, after all, and in the White House Office of Banners and Backdrops, this week is nothing to celebrate. Far from it. In fact, in the Office of Banners and Backdrops, this may be the worst week of the entire year. And every year, it seems to get worse.

There certainly was no avoiding it when they turned on their TVs this week; there were replays on every channel. There was the president again, landing on the carrier. There was the president again, all spiffed out in his special presidential flight suit, striding proudly across the deck. And there was the president again, giving a little speech to the sailors and the cameras that no one would have remembered for a moment except for the banner hanging over a presidential shoulder.

"Mission Accomplished," the banner said, and everything else the Office of Banners and Backdrops had ever done, and everything else the Office of Banners and Backdrops would ever do, was swallowed up in that one shot, four years ago this week.

"It's not fair," they thought to themselves, or more accurately, "It's Not Fair." (There was something about working in the Office of Banners and Backdrops that turned every thought into something billboard-sized and ready for framing.) They were proud of their work; boiling complicated issues down to their essence, and then finding just the right way to display that essence for maximum visual effect -- it was a science as much as an art.

Yet all their accomplishments, all their portfolios spilling over with catchy wording and inspiring typography, were no match for the negative power of a single ill-considered phrase. It wasn't even their project! That was the worst part; some Navy guys had said they'd take care of all the logistics. But OBB was ultimately in charge, and OBB hadn't said anything to kill it when there was still a chance to kill it, before the footage that would live forever was loosed upon the world.

The buck stops here -- they understood that better than anyone.

They could have said no. If they'd had any idea how much longer the war would last, or how the casualty count would grow, they'd have shot it down in a New York minute. They'd have insisted on something a bit more modest -- "Forward to Freedom," perhaps, or "Cruising to Victory." Something like that.

"So Far, So Good" would have been too modest; this administration was hardly in the habit of minimizing its triumphs, and in the first week of May of 2003, Iraq certainly looked like a triumph. But something a little less...sweeping would have been nice. Something that wouldn't have left them quite so much at the mercy of future events. People are always waiting to see the mighty stumble, whether it's "Mission Accomplished" or "Bring It On" or "Slam Dunk" or "Last Throes" or --

Were they simply too caught up in the excitement of the moment? Did the preening outrun the planning? Four years later, it all looks so obvious, the embarrassment so avoidable. But who knew?

Now, that would make a perfect banner.

Posted 5/2/07. For the best in commentary, you should be hanging at "Rick's"!

Rick Horowitz is a syndicated columnist, TV commentator, writing coach and public speaker.

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