"In a city where image is everything ... the White House has created an indelible, and formidable, image by having Bush land aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln to deliver a speech signaling the end of the military phase of the war with Iraq. ... The attention the event generated was a political consultant's dream, said Michael Deaver, who was President Ronald Reagan's White House image guru. ... Paul Begala, a former Clinton aide, called the flight a 'tax-subsidized commercial.' ... Navy officials were unable yesterday to provide the per-hour cost to operate two S-3B Vikings, one carrying the president and the other his chief of staff."