Your Turn: The Final Days Of Bush (And Cheney?)

Apart from the obvious ‘cheney is the power behind the throne’ metaphore, I see Cheney is not exactly penitent, now is he? I loathe the man, but you can make out the determination, how he is spoiling for a fight and not ready to slink away quietly. That’s pretty much how he as operated since clearing out the VP mansion.
What I see in the half face of Bush is the exact opposite. The expression belies what we at my place of employment call a short-timer, someone who is counting the minutes left to their two-week notice and already plotting the quickest path to the door.
Also those red lines on his nose remind me of how Ted Kennedy looked before he stopped drinking. I’m just saying.

Oh, did I mention they are both war criminals?

Time Magazine frequently offers speculation in place of factual journalism. The conversations “reported” between Bush and Cheney strike me as particularly fanciful. You and I can write imaginary conversations, too. But let’s call them what they are – fiction.
We are led to believe that Bush had no idea that Libby was lying and that it took Fred Fielding a week to find it out. Ahh, go on. It’s more likely that Bush decided that Libby was a piss ant and that pardoning him would cost him some legacy points. And in the final week of Bush-Cheney, Cheney himself was a piss ant.
I’m just not disposed to accept stories that credit either of these two snakes with any character. For all we know, Cheney’s push for a Libby pardon was to keep him from writing a tell-all book. Doing something out of loyalty suggests that Cheney has principles.

Ick. If Cheney looked at me like that, I’d start wearing body armor.

Well, the picture captures every bit of Cheney’s sinister aspect and makes Commander CooCoo look completely empty-headed, so it’s a perfect puppet metaphor. And since the story points out that Cheney won’t give up his Shadow Government, the sinister aspect of Cheney just grows.

The broken blood vessels in W’s nose jump out at me.

The selection and framing are key here.
In the first of two other frames by Luke Frazza from this event, Bush has a more confident look and a raised hand while Cheney smiles (as much as he can) wryly, looking into the camera, and both are in focus. In another, they are both mute, listening to a reporter ask a question off camera.
The frame on the TIME cover was selected for several reasons. It’s an extreme closeup, and Cheney observes Bush speaking – denoting that the piece is about intimate details their relationship that may be surprising to you as the reader – even if the general idea is all too familiar. Bush is in focus – the face we were always shown, while Cheney is out of focus – his machinations never entirely clear to the public.
Moreover, TIME’s crop is essential: The way the photographer shot the original, you can see equal amounts of each of their faces – with Bush taking up more real estate in the frame. The TIME cover crop serves to shunt Bush to the side, reduce him to a single dazed eyeball, those broken capillaries on his nose, and a mouth that says “uhhh”. Cheney, on the other hand, is brought to the center of the frame, with a little help from some added black pixels on the left, which also serve to accommodate the weak and uninspiring headline.
Finally, I think the expressions are meant to show something more reflective of the revelations in the piece than the “Bush is an idiot; Cheney is evil” mantra. Bush is the one who was out of his depth as the President, but was the “decider” nevertheless. He now prefers to spend his time out of the public eye. Cheney is the one with unfinished business, who still wants to call the shots even though he isn’t even Vice President any more.
(Frankly, the photo is a far better encapsulation of the piece than the headline.)
A lot goes into selecting a cover image and tweaking it just so, and I guarantee you that none of the above was overlooked.