How does he pull the strings while thumbing his nose like that?

July 15, 2004: Karl Rove “gestures with his hand during a speech saying that Sen. John Kerry thumbed his nose to U.S. troops in Iraq”. July 16, 2004: Op-Ed cartoon by Stuart Carlson (This remarkable confluence via Dan Froomkin’s White House Briefing, the Washington Post, July 20, 2004)