Our President, Ladies and Gentlemen...

I'd make this into a caption contest, but it's just too easy...Plus, you know...no one ever leaves comments.



Apparently, Will Ferrell's impression of our president is a lot more accurate than any of us ever imagined.

The article that goes with this picture is about a book coming out tomorrow that makes a shocking, brain-melting revelation. Get ready this...after months of careful, close research, journalist Robert Draper is ready to declare...George W. Bush may not know what he's doing!

I know, I know, I didn't believe it either, but Draper apparently has it on good authority.

Here's some excerpts from the New York Times:

Mr. Bush went on to share private thoughts that appeared to reflect a level of sorrow and presidential isolation that he strongly implied he took pains to hide, a state of being that he seemed to view as coming with the presidency and with which he professed to be at peace.

Telling Mr. Draper he likes to keep things “relatively light-hearted” around the White House, he added in May, “I can’t let my own worries — I try not to wear my worries on my sleeve; I don’t want to burden them with that.”

“Self-pity is the worst thing that can happen to a presidency,” Mr. Bush told Mr. Draper, by way of saying he sought to avoid it. “This is a job where you can have a lot of self-pity.”

Bush seems unaware that the entire conservative rhetorical strategy pivots around self-pity. "The media never reports our side of the story." "Liberals don't tolerate our views." "We're not free to practice our majority religion." "The terrorists hate our freedoms." "Gays are infringing on our right to marry."

Self-pity is the only thing that has happened to his presidency.

The Washington Post account focuses more on the squabbling within Bush's inner circle, and is thus more amusing.

In "Dead Certain: The Presidency of George Bush," journalist Robert Draper writes that Rove told Bush he should not tap Cheney for the Republican ticket: "Selecting Daddy's top foreign-policy guru ran counter to message. It was worse than a safe pick -- it was needy." But Bush did not care -- he was comfortable with Cheney and "saw no harm in giving his VP unprecedented run of the place."

When Rove, President Bush's top political adviser, expressed concerns about the Miers selection, he was "shouted down" and subsequently muted his objections, Draper writes, while other advisers did not realize the outcry the nomination would cause within the president's conservative political base.

Honestly, I know he's a venomous little troll, but this is the first time I've felt even a twinge of pity for Rove. He knew there was something about Cheney that was wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Granted, he was deciding this for the wrong reasons - trying to protect George W. Bush rather than America - but the conclusion was sound. So, yeah, he's evil, but he wound up having to devise strategies to explain a lot of evil things he probably would not have chosen to do himself. Just sucks is all...

It was John G. Roberts Jr., now the chief justice of the United States, who suggested Miers to Bush as a possible Supreme Court justice, according to the book. Miers, the White House counsel and a Bush loyalist from Texas, did not want the job, but Bush and first lady Laura Bush prevailed on her to accept the nomination, Draper writes.

After Miers withdrew in the face of the conservative furor, Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. was selected and confirmed for the seat.

Roberts rejected Draper's report when asked about it last night.

"The account is not true," said Supreme Court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg, after consulting with Roberts. "The chief justice did not suggest Harriet Miers to the president."

Now that things aren't going right, all of these once semi-dignified people have been reduced to petty, schoolyard squabbling.

"Inviting Harriet was all John's idea."

"Nuh-uh, it was George's!"

"Nuh-uh...You guys suck! I'm retiring to join lecture circuit!"
And that is what the Deciderer is planning to do, if you can believe it. Lecture. He wants to give speeches...professionally...

First, Mr. Bush said, “I’ll give some speeches, just to replenish the ol’ coffers.” With assets that have been estimated as high as nearly $21 million, Mr. Bush added, “I don’t know what my dad gets — it’s more than 50-75” thousand dollars a speech, and “Clinton’s making a lot of money.”

Yeah, this sounds promising. I think George ought to stick with motivational speaking. Maybe he could go to high schools and talk to the kids about why you shouldn't invade sovereign nations with centuries of complex, tribal rivalries simmering just under the service. Or drink and drive. (Laura could come too! I'm sure she has keen insights on the vagaries of vehicular manslaughter!)

Then he said, “We’ll have a nice place in Dallas,” where he will be running what he called “a fantastic Freedom Institute” promoting democracy around the world. But he added, “I can just envision getting in the car, getting bored, going down to the ranch.”

I'm not sure Bush realizes that when smart people say "institute," they mean a big, boring building full of offices where people write proposals and books and such. He's most likely picturing some Willy Wonka-esque enchanted factory distributing a gooey, sugary substance known as Freedonium to all the rich old white men of the world. I mean, the "Fantastic Freedom Institute"? Has he learned nothing in the last six and a half years? The least we could ask from the Bush Presidency is that George W. Bush, the man, grow a little bit from the experience. We ask that from John Hughes movies, it's the least we can expect from the leader of the free world.

(P.S. I'd just like to add, for the record, that Bush doesn't really do any ranching. Everyone knows by now that the whole Crawford, Texas ranch thing was part of his presidential run, a symbol for the gritty American cowboy branding of his political campaign. How pathetic that he intends to keep up this charade even after he's no longer president, when it no longer matters...It'd be like Jared Fogle touting Subway sandwiches to disinterested tourists on Manhattan street corners 20 years from now, long after the food service company had dissolved his contract and cut all ties to the perky nuisance.)