On the surface, Laura Bush on vacation and Saddam Hussein in his underwear might not seem to be linked. But they are. Intimately.

Now calm down, Mr. President, it’s not what you think. It rarely is these days, come to think of it.

In the Abu Ghraib scandal or the li’l matter of prisoners dying in Afghanistan, we’ve had the ready excuse of an overextended and undertrained military. You know, good American boys and girls put in a prison guard role that wasn’t part of the boot camp regimen. Youthful high spirits, little more than a fraternity prank that got out of control, really. We’re taking action, and the perpetrators of this completely isolated incident are being severely reprimanded and they’re very, very sorry. Etc.

That’s a harder sell with the candid lingerie shots of Saddam Hussein that have humiliated and enraged the very Iraqis whom we’re trying to convince to Stop It With The Blowing Up Already. It’s not extremely credible that the people with close access to the most important prisoner on the face of the earth are a bunch of good-hearted but undertrained kids with a penchant for mischief. Maybe a good-hearted but undertrained four-star general with a penchant for mischief, I guess, god bless the li’l nipper…

But you’re still thinking about my opening sentence, and wondering “So how did Laura Bush get into Saddam’s underwear?” It’s a fair question, and it’s more interesting than the non-shocking revelation that a ruthless dictator would prefer briefs to boxers (I mean, of course…). Let me explain.

Mrs. Bush’s tour of the Temple Mount yesterday sounded like a lot fun. She got to visit the Dome of the Rock! Remember, the Dome of the Rock, that really holy Islamic place that Ariel Sharon visited in 2000, which touched off a violent and still-continuing Palestinian uprising and soon afterwards helped sweep a law-n-order candidate into the Prime Minister’s office in Israel, a candidate whose name just happened to be “Ariel Sharon?”

Yes, that Dome of the Rock.

You’d think that in the wake of Undiegate the First Lady might have wanted to alter her day’s plan in some way. Maybe go to nice restaurant and avoid any further appearance that we Americans are a bunch of cloddish, cruel infidels who cheerfully stomp on everything that folks in the Middle East hold dear simply because we can. You’d think.

You’d be wrong. The administration doesn’t think that way. To them, we Americans are so clearly righteous and good and free that all we have to do is hang around long enough and they will love us. We’re cuddly. We’re nice. We radiate Freedom. They’ll get it after a while, and these little incidents like Laura on the Rock and Undiegate and Abu Ghraib and Koran desecration and etc. will be things that we’ll all look back on together and laugh at some day:

“Dang, we were a bunch of silly billies, weren’t we, Mohammed?”

“Oh yes, buddy, but we were SO touchy! It’s a little embarrassing.”

“Aw, not another word about that, pal. Let’s go to Applebee’s.”

“You got it, praise Allah. I’m buying!”

With a future like that a near certainty, it’s not hard to see why our First Lady would take her day trip so close to Saddam’s underpants. There’s never a “sensitive time” or a need for “restraint” or anything like that. Laura had a trip planned, and she took it. Chalk it up to youthful high spirits.