I managed to catch a broadcast of my favorite television program the other day, ESPN's "Pardon The Interruption" (PTI), a rare feat these days due to parental duties for my one year old, who has a strict No-TV policy diligently policed by the author of that legislation, my lovely wife Jennifer. During this episode of PTI, the charmingly argumentative hosts of the program, Kornheiser and Wilbon, took a break from yelling at each other about the latest happenings in the male soap opera of sports entertainment and showed a clip of our President in Beijing, China. Mr. Bush had just finished some sort of photo-op/brief press conference for the gathered media, and attempted to exit stage right. Unfortunately for Mr. Bush he attempted to exit via a large, rather ornate set of red and gold doors, a pair of doors fit for an entrance to a palace or grand ballroom. Mr. Bush reached for the first of these doors without hesitation, without a doubt in his mind that it would open for him and allow a graceful exit from the stage. But the door was locked, or perhaps as a decorative door it just doesn't open. Undaunted, without missing a beat, Mr. Bush reached for the second, conjoined door. This kind of thing happens to me all the time, I'll be entering the local 7-11 and the first glass door I try is inevitably the one locked. Mr. Bush must have reacted as we all do, we know we can get in the 7-11 if we just use the other glass door. So it was typically American of Mr. Bush to grab for that second door, only this time the second door wouldn't budge either. At this point I thought Mr. Bush handled the situation with aplomb, as he appeared to share a laugh at his plight with the on-looking media, diffusing the embarrassment of the moment and restoring some dignity as he at last found the real exit stage right, a discrete set of black curtains set a few feet to the back of the stage behind the decorative doors. Mr. Bush then got out of there post haste. Narrating the clip, Kornheiser and Wilbon had a few laughs at the president's expense, but were fairly generous in cutting him plenty of slack.

Of course, the temptation in observing this clip is to use it to make a mockery of Mr. Bush, which Wilbon gave us a taste of by comparing the moment to President Ford's memorable tendency to fall down the stairs when deplaning, a tendency exquisitely sent up by that great Saturday Night Live "Stumblebum" skit (which skit served as my primary introduction to Mr. Ford's tendency, as I was in diapers during Ford's presidency). Mr. Bush's embarrassing Beijing moment dovetails nicely with his famous/infamous deficiency in oratory. We always knew Bush was no Churchill, but we never suspected he was a Ford.

But rather than skewer Mr. Bush for his comical blunder, I'd rather do something more pretentious. I intend to view this incident symbolically, for I believe that what happened on the stage in Beijing can tell us much more than that our president is kind of dopey and gravitas-challenged. Viewed symbolically, this incident is a snapshot of the failure of Mr. Bush's most important foreign policy strategy, the war in Iraq. More importantly, it is a roadmap (to borrow a thus far empty phrase from another Middle Eastern thicket) for Bush, if he can summon the courage of leadership to emulate his wisdom on stage in Beijing.

The symbolism is not overly complex. In Beijing, Mr. Bush found himself on stage, just as his decision to pursue war in Iraq placed Mr. Bush at the center of the global stage. As I watched Mr. Bush pull futilely on those decorative doors, I could only think of the day he landed a jet fighter on an American aircraft carrier, to proclaim victory in Iraq. In the buildup to the Iraq war Mr. Bush and his administration had promised a swift victory that would both rid the world of the threat of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and establish a model democracy in the heart of the Islamic world. Top Gun-style theatrics aside, Mr. Bush’s proclamation that day aboard the aircraft carrier was his finest hour: weapons of mass destruction or not, Saddam was deposed, and for a brief moment an Iraqi democracy appeared a fait accompli, with but an inevitable series of elections to make it official.

The aircraft carrier stunt was the Bush team’s choreographed attempt to exit stage right through the doors of history with Mr. Bush off to attend a post-Oscar-style after party where he would be feted as a conquering hero. But, just like those doors in Beijing, the doors of history would not budge. And Mr. Bush, his political capital, and the US Military are stuck in Iraq to this day, where assuredly, things have not gone according to script.

If the symbolic view ended there it would be a possibly clever, but probably just cute way of criticizing Mr. Bush’s plan to triumph over terrorism via victory in Iraq. But the real value of interpreting events symbolically rests on an ability to carry the analysis into the future tense. Events have a way of unfolding that not only reflects what has already come to pass, but offers a guide for a safe, if trying, navigation of churning waters. I believe that events unfolded on stage in Beijing in precisely such a fashion, and that the value of viewing those events symbolically obtains only when we view the scene in its entirety. If Mr. Bush is to salvage his final three years in office he needs to discover a future tense in Iraq. Put bluntly, the man needs an exit strategy. On stage that day in Beijing, Mr. Bush’s own reactions will, if viewed symbolically, guide him towards a possible exit strategy, or at least an approach that would make one possible.

The key element in Mr. Bush’s reaction to his embarrassing situation in Beijing was his immediate awareness of the humor of the situation. Laughing at himself was the only way to preserve his dignity in a potentially humiliating circumstance.
Now I am not suggesting that Mr. Bush needs to find the humor in the morass of Iraq, because there is nothing funny in the daily tragedies befalling both Iraqis and American servicemen (and servicewomen). Instead I want to link Mr. Bush’s use of humor in the face of embarrassment with the quality of humility. Mr. Bush evidenced some capacity for humility when he laughed at his blunder on stage in Beijing. By laughing at himself he laughed with the onlooking media throng, instead of allowing them to laugh at him. Bush was then able to exit the stage, dignity largely intact, by way of an inconspicuous curtain at the back of the stage. Symbolically, this is the recipe for Mr. Bush to exit Iraq. He, and his administration, must exercise a capacity for humility that to this point appears to be beyond their ken. But it is only through a quantum leap in humility that Mr. Bush can summon the courage to craft an exit strategy from Iraq that will in no way resemble the glorious victory envisioned at the outset of hostilities. It is only through humility that Mr. Bush can accept that the goal of establishing a foothold for democracy in Iraq through the use of military power has failed, and that simply to avoid civil war in Iraq and get our men and women home will be all the victory we are going to get. And perhaps most importantly, it is only through a demonstration of humility that Mr. Bush can join with the American public and the world who watches us, just as he joined with the media on stage in Beijing. Mr. Bush’s war in Iraq has been one of the great acts of hubris in modern times, and it will take an even greater display of humility for Mr. Bush to balance the scales. I have my doubts as to whether Mr. Bush is up to the task, but I have no doubt that this was symbolized for us all to see on a stage in Beijing.