#2 - RW 274
Moscow Times
September 18, 2003
Political Lesson in the Cards
By Anna Dolgov
Special to The Moscow Times

George W. Bush is "convinced that God has a plan for him," in "The United Cards of America," created by the Kommersant newspaper and NTV's "Namedni" news program

A game of cards can now become a quick lesson of who's who in Washington with the release of a new deck that looks an awful lot like the United States' own deck of most-wanted Iraqi leaders.

The creators of "The United Cards of America," the Kommersant newspaper and NTV's "Namedni" news program, acknowledge that they were inspired by the Iraq deck but insist that their set is mostly for educational purposes.

The deck of 36 playing cards -- complete with pictures and brief commentaries of prominent U.S. figures -- is also a lot more amusing.

Among the cards are George W. Bush ("USA President since 2001, convinced that God has a plan for him"); Donald Evans ("commerce secretary, drank with Bush Jr. until July 6, 1986"); and Laura Bush ("the wife of Bush Jr., made husband quit drinking").

Also included are Joshua Bolten ("White House budget director, a stingy guardian of people's money"); Andrew Card ("White House chief of staff, filters the president's interlocutors"); John Snow ("secretary of treasury, the salesman of George Bush's economic ideas"); and Colin Powell ("secretary of state, a living embodiment of the American dream").

"This is a kind of entertaining Americanology," Leonid Parfyonov, the anchor of "Namedni," said in a telephone interview.

While joking about the quirks of their leaders is a national pastime and most Russians can easily name who's who in Moscow, their knowledge of U.S. politicians is generally limited to what they hear on dry newscasts. The cards, along with reports by Kommersant and "Namedni" this month, are aimed at providing background information that news reports usually skip, Kommersant said.

The breakdown into suits follows certain guidelines: The hearts are the "family" (which includes Bush's relatives and close friends), the diamonds are "moderates," the clubs are "careerists," and the spades are "neo-conservatives."

The division is, of course, somewhat arbitrary, said the head of Kommersant's foreign policy department, Azer Mursaliyev, who came up with the idea in the first place. "And the cards themselves are basically arbitrary -- this is not a political science class, after all," he said. "Serious Americanologists may say that this is absolutely wrong, that the key figures are absolutely different.

"But we didn't have the goal of providing material for the Foreign Intelligence Service. Our goal was to educate our readers a little bit."

Each Monday this month Kommersant is publishing profiles of those featured in each of the suits, while "Namedni" is reporting about the figures in its Sunday broadcasts.

The release of the cards, which cost 150 to 180 rubles, was timed to coincide with a peak in interest in U.S. affairs this month. The interest is partly due to the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and President Vladimir Putin's planned meeting with Bush at Camp David.

"Our readers will have a chance to look at the cards and see, 'He [Putin] met with so-and-so, and who is this person? Oh, a seven,'" Mursaliyev said.

The cards also aimed to reflect growing U.S. influence in world affairs, Kommersant wrote in a recent article. Bush "has become the most powerful man on Earth, and his entourage, effectively, has become the world government," it said.

He may be the "most powerful man on Earth," but in the suit of hearts, Bush is only a jack. The ace is his father, former President George Bush, while the king is the Reverend Franklin Graham ("preacher and missionary, the president's holy father"), and the queen is his wife, Laura Bush.

"In the Bush family, Bush Sr. is naturally the senior, and Bush Jr. himself has always said that," Mursaliyev explained. "Then the holy father, who obviously can't come below [the president], and the queen is naturally the wife -- after all we couldn't make President Bush the queen. And therefore, he is the jack."

The diamonds -- "moderates" -- include Powell, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage ("the most undiplomatic diplomat") and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.

The clubs -- the "careerists" and "the necessary element of any administration," according to Kommersant -- include Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan ("the second most-powerful man in the world"), Karl Rove ("the president's adviser, George Bush Jr.'s political guru") and Karen Hughes ("the president's former adviser, will come back at the next election").

U.S. Ambassador to Russia Alexander Vershbow is also there -- a seven of clubs, just above FBI Director Robert Mueller. Asked whether he liked his picture on the card, Vershbow said Tuesday, "The one in Kommersant was even worse." Beyond that, the U.S. Embassy would not comment on the cards, spokesman Tom Leary said.

The spades -- or "neo-conservatives" -- include Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ("the face of the struggle with terrorism") and his wife, Lynne Cheney ("an advocate of conservative values").

"We didn't want to depart too far from reality," Parfyonov said.

"Looking from Moscow, the top powers in America do seem to consist of four clearly separable vectors."

The term "family" draws a clear parallel with former President Boris Yeltsin's inner circle, the influential group of relatives and advisers that has been described by the same word.

"Just the fact that it's George Bush the Junior is evidence that in America there's also a 'family,'" Parfyonov said.

In any other way, the deck is just a set of cards. Decks of 36 cards -- without jokers -- are common in Russia.

"In nothing except the illustrations does it differ from an ordinary deck of playing cards," Kommersant wrote. "And it can be used not only for enlightenment and educational purposes but also for its original purpose."

Would-be students or players can buy the cards at the Biblio-Globus bookstore on Lubyanka, Dom Knigi on Novy Arbat or the Moskva bookstore on Tverskaya Ulitsa

CDI Russia Weekly #274 ~ Contents  •  Next