On Surprise Visit to Kabul to Wind Down War, Obama Has Better Toppings

So, I’m thinking about the best way to track the “44 and Mittens show” now that the battle’s underway. Just like the networks do those split-screens, we could parse the daily deluge down to the best two photo-ops and crown our winner of the day.

I’m not sure this would be the fairest moment to start, though. That’s because yesterday Obama dropped in to Afghanistan to salute our troops and to accessorize with Old Glory and two very cool, sandy-colored armored vehicles. While commencing the U.S. mop-up operation with a boffo address (the declaration of the demise of al Qaeda allowing the President to also trumpet the Administration’s elimination of bin Laden on this surely coincidental one year anniversary of “lights out in Abbottabad”), we saw Mitt delivering a pizza.

Even worse, though, the Getty photo below calls Mitt out for attempting to play on the anniversary of bin Laden’s death at a Lower Manhattan fire station. Certainly, Giulini didn’t help in citing Mitt as someone who has “been a leader in the effort to make certain that America remains safe.”

Attempting to leverage the terrorism issue and the 9/11 attack by posing alongside a fire vehicle emblazoned with names of deceased “first responders,” the photo literally “sees through the hype” by contrasting Mitt, and the 9/11 names, with the skeptical faces of citizen onlookers through the window.

(Updated with additional photos.)

(photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/GettyImages caption: US President Barack Obama salutes as he arrives to address troops during a visit to Bagram Air Field on May 1, 2012 in Afghanistan. Obama signed a US-Afghanistan strategic partnership agreement during his unannounced visit to the country. photo 2: A.P.)