Bushes Send Greetings to a Select 1.5m

Whatever you might make of the Bush administration, receiving a Christmas card from the president and Laura Bush themselves, postmarked Crawford, Texas, is a bit of a thrill - until, that is, you discover there are a million and a half others on the White House list.

The presidential greetings card industry has come a long way in the 50 years since Dwight Eisenhower sent out 1,100 small copies of his own portrait of Abraham Lincoln.

This year Mr Bush, never a leader to do things by halves, sent out a record 1.5m cards to his closest friends, supporters, foreign dignitaries and assorted hacks and hangers on.

The Bushes have opted not to emulate Tony and Cherie Blair, who sent out pictures of themselves - with their children for members of the inner circle; without for the rest. In Washington, that would undoubtedly have been seized on as evidence of a calculated personality cult.

The Bush card instead follows recent presidential tradition in portraying a White House scene cleansed of any human presence that might trigger scrutiny for hidden meanings. Last year's picture of a presidential piano was criticised as being cold and unseasonal.

This year's card features altogether warmer colours, showing a fireplace flanked by two buttery yellow armchairs in the White House diplomatic reception room.

The message is similarly uncontroversial, a quote from Job: "You have granted me life and loving kindness; and your care has preserved my spirit."

But Vice-President Dick Cheney has been less careful and embellished his greetings with the brazen use of a taboo word. His card quotes one of the nation's founders, Benjamin Franklin, declaring: "And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?"

What empire might that be, the critics would like to know. Meanwhile, America's wildlife protectors have focused on the mention of a falling sparrow. They point to Mr Cheney's taste for downing birds in huge numbers, by shooting them in circumstances when it is hard to miss.

On a November bird-hunting trip to the exclusive Rolling Rock Club in Pennsylvania, 500 pheasants were released directly in front of the vice-president and his 10-strong party. Only 100 of the birds survived the experience.

Mr Cheney, who was under close secret service protection during the hunt, killed 70.

America's Humane Society complained that the odds had been so heavily stacked against the pheasants that the event was more of a "mass killing" than a hunt.