Presidential Presentations Post-Mortem #1b

A point I'd like to make, since I haven't seen anyone else pick up on this: President Bush acted (key word "acted") highly offended at his interpretation of Kerry's dismissal of Iyad Alawi's recent (political) visit to the US. The key quote:

Now, my opponent says he's going to try to change the dynamics on the ground. Well, Prime Minister Alawi was here. He is the leader of that country. He's a brave, brave man. When he came, after giving a speech to the Congress, my opponent questioned his credibility. 

You can't change the dynamics on the ground if you've criticized the brave leader of Iraq. 

One of his campaign people alleged that Prime Minister Alawi was like a ... a puppet. That's no way to treat somebody who's courageous and brave, that is trying to lead his country forward.

Again, I should stress that if you didn't hear this live, it came over as very offended. Bush practically spat out the word "puppet," almost stuttering it.

A week before, Darth Cheney had excoriated Kerry for "disrespecting" our dear ally Alawi because Kerry (correctly) pointed out that several of the claims made in Alawi's speech before Congress were bald-faced lies.

Remarkable, given the fact that Alawi's schedule and appearance planning was done by the White House, and his speech before Congress was written in part by the Bush Campaign team. Yes, that's right -- not the White House, the Bush Campaign team.

If that's not a puppet, what is?