If you're going to the Republican National Convention, bring rose petals.

I was just staring angrily at a hagiographic portrait of Putin on the side of a bus stop (no, I wasn't in Moscow; there is a picture in the L.A. Times), then I came upstairs and read this:

For days now, the job at Eisenhower Park in Nassau County has been to follow the order from the White House through the Secret Service and down to the park workers:

"The president's feet are not to touch the dirt."

So all yesterday, large crews drawn from all county parks worked to ensure that, as always in his life, George Bush's feet do not touch the ground when he appears in the big park today.

Bush arrives for a fund-raiser at a restaurant in the park. That is indoors and he doesn't have to worry about his feet there. But he has to go over ground to an administration building where he is to meet with families of 9/11 victims. After that, he has to go over more ground to get to the site of a memorial to the victims.

And all I could think of was this guy.