When Nicholas Berg, a 26-year-old freelance contractor who fixed radio towers, was beheaded on videotape in Iraq in May 2004, it marked the beginning of a new wave of violent retaliation by Islamic militants -- and a sign that a more brutal war lay ahead. So when Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq and the man personally responsible for Berg's murder according to the U.S. government -- was killed earlier this month, Bush and other government officials championed it as a major victory.

On a recent episode of Chappelle's Show, (Tuesdays, 10 and 10:30pm, Comedy Central) its star and host, Dave Chappelle, performed a sketch as a black George Bush (accompanied by, among others, comedian Jamie Foxx as Tony Blair and hip-hop icon Mos Def in place of then-CIA chief George Tenet). In Chappelle's skin, Bush is a unilateralist who rolls straight gangster-style, with a grimace etched on his face and the necessary contingent of anonymous thugs at his side at all times. As the Bush administration did in real life, Chappelle's Bush bases his case for war with Iraq on the phony evidence that its leaders bought “yellow cake” in Africa.