The Republic of T has a new address and a picture of George trying to shove his way past Bill Clinton, at the opening of Clinton’s library, in a childish bid to be the first through the door. T. also links to a piece by Sidney Blumenthal about George’s and Karl’s behaviour at the event that reads like fiction.
Rove’s comment, especially:
Offstage, beforehand, Rove and Bush had had their library tours. According to two eyewitnesses, Rove had shown keen interest in everything he saw, and asked questions, including about costs, obviously thinking about a future George W Bush library and legacy. “You’re not such a scary guy,” joked his guide. “Yes, I am,” Rove replied. Walking away, he muttered deliberately and loudly: “I change constitutions, I put churches in schools …” Thus he identified himself as more than the ruthless campaign tactician; he was also the invisible hand of power, pervasive and expansive, designing to alter the fundamental American compact.
Another piece sure to make it into a realist’s time capsule on the reign of George II:
Why `Weenie’ may start with a capital Dubya
SLINGER
The President of The World is not President of The World for Life, at least not yet. But is he a weenie?
What evidence is there of Dubya’s weenieness, apart from him chickening out when it came to going up against the filthy Commies in the skies over the Rio Grande during the unpleasantness in Vietnam?
He was afraid to speak to real, live U.S. voters except in situations where everybody had been required to sign a loyalty oath.
He was afraid to speak to the British Parliament.
The thought of being anywhere near Parliament in Ottawa has scared him speechless.
Every American who heckled him during the election campaign got arrested. But in satellite nations like the United Kingdom, not to mention rogue countries like Canada, it’s out of his hands. Anybody could holler anything when he’s here next week and get off scot free. This makes him very, very anxious.
In Santiago he did wade into a mob of Chilean security goons to rescue his bodyguard, but while this made him look brave, it was provoked by his fear of not having somebody at his side to protect him against evildoers. At times like that, said his press secretary, he can be “a hands-on kind of guy.”
According to David Brooks, the neocon columnist, “he’s a towel-snapping kind of guy” too. And if there’s one thing we know about guys who are towel-snapping guys, it’s that the thing they fear most is having mice nibble on their machismo.
In other words, Dubya’s a sensitive kind of guy. If he were subjected to the type of verbal barrage that the owner of the Hamilton Tiger Cats wishes his team’s fans would stop firing at the Argonauts, think what might happen.
“Do I suck?”
“You don’t, sir, believe me,” his press secretary would say. “Look how brave you were in Colombia when they had exactly the same number of troops in the street to protect you as you invaded Falluja with. Look how brave you were when you congratulated your friend Vladimir Putin for his election victory in Ukraine. Ukraine is a democracy, you said, so if 110 per cent of the voters cast ballots, the people have truly spoken.”
“What if I suck?”
You see? Heckling could plant a seed of doubt.
The last thing Canadians need when we’re hanging by a thread so slender that the President of The World isn’t completely sure we’re on his side, is for him to develop even more doubts about us.
We should bear the bigger picture in mind, too. Since he has doubts about almost everybody else in the world, shouldn’t we do something to ease those?
We have to help Dubya get over his weenieness.
The trick will be to entice him into the Commons.
“Won’t that vulgar woman be there?” (Comic relief: Did you hear about the George W. Bush doll? You wind it up and Carolyn Parrish steps on it.)
“Oh, no, sir. The Canadians fitted her with a cement bathing suit and took her swimming in the Ottawa River. As a gesture of goodwill.”
“Really? Maybe they’re not such evil folks after all.”
Then, once he’s in there, the minute he starts to speak, everybody jumps up and starts yelling at him. His bodyguard draws his gun. Dubya is about to order him to shoot the varmints, when his press secretary says, “Sir, wait! Listen to what they’re yelling.”
And Dubya listens. And what they’re yelling is, “You the man!” Every last one of them, the MPs, the opposition leaders, the Prime Minister. “You the man!”
“They think I’m the man!” He is awed, and shocked, but in the nicest possible way.
“Yes, sir. Isn’t that nice?”
“It’s real nice.” A tear forms in Dubya’s eye. “Maybe I don’t suck after all.”
We’ll have made the world a nicer place.
There is one problem.
Parliament does represent a country that is composed of an embarrassingly consequential number of what Dubya regards as “cheese-eating surrender monkeys.”
He can’t quite tell the difference between the gallant Royal 22nd Regiment that has just returned from making Afghanistan safe for opium growers, and Les Voltigeurs de Les Tirailleurs de la Force de la Frappé de Gaulle who have stayed snug at home in gay Paree eating snails gratinée.
“They eat snails, too?” he asks. “Geez, even using them to catch fish would make me nauseous.”
We’ve still got a couple of days. Let me work on this.