An Inspiration to All

When El Presidente Chimpie addressed the nation on Thursday night, I couldn't watch because I had a class to teach, but I did get to listen to all the commentary afterward. I don't envy the mouthpieces of kneepad media--honestly, they have a tough job trying to untangle some sense out of the mangled mouthing of scripts that Bush considers speechmaking. After listening to NPR and watching CNN, MSNBC, etc., I actually watched the footage of Chimpie under the temporary lights of Jackson Square (yes, they were turned on for him, then turned off when he left) and could not conjoin the complete breakdown of a "president" with the broad and charitable interpretations of his performance given by the mainstream media. Is LSD making a comeback in the culture?

With his head pulled down into a dreadfully tailored blue shirt, Bush looked like his own caricature. Is his head shrinking, or are his ears actually larger under stress? The whole look of the event was very badly staged--the lighting was stark and the set was coldly empty of any evidence of humanity so that Chimpie appeared even stranger than usual with his head dipping and slashing hand movements, carefully counted to ensure symmetry between left and right.

As I've said many times after watching Bush speak, if it was a prize fight, it would have been stopped in the first three minutes. Bush is the only person I've ever seen who could knock himself out and then kick himself senseless with his presentation of words he clearly does not comprehend. He's really the victim here, in a way, because they shove the poor, ill-equipped bastard out all alone, without even Dick Cheney's hand up his ass, to recite words that even the mainstream media is at pains to decipher into actual policy actions. And you can tell how desperate he is, because he keeps doing what Uncle Karl and Uncle Dick tell him to, and still his polls keep sinking to the point that even the most ardent wingnuts have actually strained to think for a second or two about how useful Chimpie is to them now.

It won't be long, I don't think. By year's end I believe we'll witness a public breakdown by Bush. It may be triggered by a teleprompter failure or by his own fear coming true that his father still thinks of him as a semi-retarded putz, or that his mommy scolded him about dirtying the Bush "legacy," or perhaps Laura will finally say, "Georgie, you're ruining my life!" but Bush is going to have a massive public failure of will, and it is going to be spectacular in the annals of modern media.

Of course, it may also be Master Manipulator Karl Rove's last ditch effort to garner sympathy for the worst president in history.

There is a bright side to seeing Bush on TV, however. Whenever I watch his hostage-tape presentations delivered with the mix of bewilderment and false courage that only a dumb dry drunk can muster, I realize that it really is true that anyone can become anything in this country. Think about it. In your next job interview, consider trying this tack when asked why you are suitable for the position you seek. "Shit, man, George W. Bush is the president of the United States. How could I be less qualified than that?"

Truly, in the history of employment, his ascendancy to the highest post in the land has got to be inspirational to every inept, brain-damaged, corrupt, incompetent schmuck in the nation. It's the highest notch on the post in terms of failed human resource management. And he's still got three years left, barring impeachment, indictment, conviction, and imprisonment.