Marc by Marc Jacobs store's window displays political leanings, minted deck of cards

Instead of a tableau of flirty spring dresses and chic round-toed pumps, the window of the Marc by Marc Jacobs Bleecker Street displayed a 2-foot-by-3-foot cardboard ace of spades with the image of President Bush. The Greenwich Village store has drawn crowds of gawkers to look at huge blowups of the playing cards hanging in the window. Each ''carefully stacked deck'' features a picture and some negative tidbits about the depicted party. The store sells the actual playing cards for $8 a pack, as well as 92-cent buttons and bumper stickers with slogans like "G.O.P.: Greed, Oil and Plunder," "Nobody Died When Clinton Lied" and "Hail to the Thief." assorted anti-Bush buttons and even toilet paper featuring the president's image. The jokers in the deck are both Bush - one of the president missing an attempt to hit a T-ball, another of him decked out in a flight suit, when he declared an end to major combat in Iraq a year ago.

Riffing on the Saddam playing cards that were sold in the run-up to and early days of US-led invasion of Iraq, the cards depict Bush as the ace of spades, with Vice President Dick Cheney, Attorney General John Ashcroft and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld rounding out the four aces. Cheney's ace of clubs lists his 2000 Halliburton income ($36 million) and the figure 13,500 - the number of pages of energy-related documents he has withheld from the US Congress.

National security adviser Condoleezza Rice is the queen of hearts.

Florida Governor Jeb Bush is the six of clubs and carries a quote from his brother the president: ''Jeb has assured me we have Florida,'' made during the hotly contested 2000 presidential election.

The Central Chronicle reported, the reaction from people passing the store was mixed. Meghan Sharigian, a garden designer who stopped to look on Wednesday, was all smiles. She said, "People don't respond to the news,But they do respond to fashion."

But one middle-aged West Village resident, who identified himself only as Joe, stared sourly at a portrait of Condoleezza Rice, with a caption claiming she had an oil tanker named after her; he said, "This may be a Democratic neighborhood, but I think the message is insulting to some people."

Ms. Ehrlich, the Wired marketer, said that the windows riled her enough to make her think twice about shopping inside. And said, "We're in a sensitive world right now, and fanning the fires on our own street is not a good idea."

The window elicited only a shrug from Lisa Mayo, a hairdresser who works in the East Village; she said, "It's interesting marketing, I guess they can voice their opinion. You don't necessarily have to agree." And she added, "I'm here to shop." Slung on her arm was a brand-new purchase from another of Mr. Jacobs's stores. "I couldn't help myself," she said. "I love their bags."
from Central Chronicle