Presidential Island Hopping

Damn, I was hoping to get this finished Thursday morning, but I got busy and so now you'll probably read this a day late.

Hey, I just found something that President Bush is really good for: Waking me the fuck up. I don't know if you've noticed, but I've been posting all my stuff really, really late at night (ie, the next morning). And that means I've also been waking up pretty late too. And I've been wanting to change that, particularly now that school will be starting soon and I'll have to get my lazy kids out the door every morning. But when you don't go to bed until five in the morning, it's kind of hard to get back out of bed before eleven. Even with my alarm clock, I'll usually feel so crappy after only five hours sleep that I turn it off and go right back to sleep.

Well I just found a good way of getting up in the morning: Listening to our idiot president give a press conference; as I did this morning when my NPR station which normally plays music at that time of day had Bush on instead. There's nothing like having your head explode to help get you out of bed in the morning. It works better than coffee.

And let me just say: Wow. What an idiot. I can't remember the last time I actually heard him speak for an extended period of time, but...wow. What an idiot. The transcripts really don't do him justice. I'm not sure how anyone could ever have listened to him without thinking the same thing, but I guess that just goes to show the human capacity for fooling oneself into believing that the crap they're eating is really caviar. People can believe anything, if they want to badly enough. I learned that from Karl Rove.

Like a Child on Acid

And frankly, I don't know which part disturbs me more: When he spends all his time floating around, with no clue as to where he's going or even what his next sentence might possibly be, or when he finally does find a point of reference that is familiar to him and begins to repeat that point over and over again. Imagine someone lost at sea, and whenever they spot a piece of land they recognize, begin to circle it over and over again, happy to see any kind of land at all. Or perhaps the better equivalent is to a half-witted child who happens to make one funny joke, and then won't stop repeating it for the rest of the day. And when you don't laugh, he assumes you just didn't get it and repeats it a few more times.

And the pattern was clear. Every question was a bad question. Every question was based on a reality that Bush was simply unable to recognize. Or at least that's how it was with the three questions I endured before I finally turned off my radio alarm and bounded out of bed, more awake than I had any right to feel. And so he'd impatiently wait until the reporter finished the question, and then start on his quest to figure out how to turn the question asked into the question he wanted to have been asked. And he even failed at that, so that you never really were quite sure what question he was even wanting to answer; though you were certain he didn't answer the one given.

And it was painful to listen to him during these parts, because it was so obvious that he was lost. He'd just start rambling about something, clearly having no idea where he was going with it. And then he'd finally get to a part that he'd recognize, and he'd start sounding more confident. And then he'd start repeating that part, as if he was speaking to children who just weren't able to "get it" unless you said the same phrase five or six more times.

And even then, that wasn't good enough. He'd keep talking. And before you knew it, he was back into the weeds again, clearly out of his element and again searching for familiar turf to talk about. And he'd generally find himself back again, confidently repeating that comfortable part over and over before arbitrarily signaling that his answer was over and that he was ready for another round.

And again, that's the weird thing about Bush. For as much as his supporters talk about him being brave and resolute, he sure doesn't sound brave or resolute when he talks. He sounds like a little kid who was daydreaming when the teacher asked him a question and now he's stalling while he mentally backtracks and prays he can recall what the actual question was. But that really is the case. Except that it's not just that he's daydreaming. That's where he's at all of the time.

People refer to it as a "bubble" but I'm sure it goes deeper than that. I'm sure he's just batshit crazy; so deep into his fantasy world that he doesn't even have a clue he's there and can't figure out why the reality people talk to him about has so little relationship to the one he's living in. Sure, the faces and names are all the same, but somehow all these other people have an entirely different perspective on who those faces really are and what those names really mean. Like your crazy Aunt Millie who calls you Fred whenever she sees you and keeps asking about the dog you never had.

The Emperor Has No Accountability

At this point, I had a long section on a question he was asked about accountability, but I've now read several A-list bloggers already going over that question, so I'll just delete that part. But you can watch the clip yourself at TPM.

There, I deleted it. But my main emphasis wasn't on how dumb the answer was, but on how dumb the question was. What was the point? The reporter could have asked me the same question, and I could have said exactly what Bush said, but more succinctly. Did the reporter really think Bush would screw-up and start talking about how Cheney told him they couldn't screw-over poor Scooter, and how Gonzalez is the only guy he can trust for the job because he knew the Dems won't give him a comparable lackey? Or that he'd even admit that Al did something to be held accountable for?

Sure, Bush isn't a bright guy, but he knows how to stay in his own reality. So what was the point of the question? Bush was clearly somewhat embarrassed by it, as it had sort of an Emperor Has No Clothes quality about it. You know, because it shot right past the polite fiction the Bushies hold on all these subjects and went straight to the heart of the matter. Hell, it's the kind of stuff that real people talk about. So there was no way Bush could answer the question, so it shouldn't have been asked. Could this reporter really be in such a bubble that he thinks Bush might have actually shot from the hip on that one? Or was he merely setting up the president because he wanted his question to be quoted by all the A-list bloggers?

Tony Snow for President

On a final note, I'd just like to point out that it would probably be easier to program a computer to give intelligent responses to these questions than to try it with Bush. Seriously. All the program would need to do is to pick out a few key phrases from the question, toss out a few empty sentences to rephrase the question, and then go ahead with the answer already written on that subject. That's all Bush ever does, and he every real question asked. The computer could only be an improvement.

But is the point of these Bush press conferences? He never gives real responses. He never says anything of any importance in them. And if he did, his handlers would promptly issue retractions for anything that might have interested anyone. And seeing as how those handlers have a better grasp on this stuff than Bush anyway, those retractions would really be the correct answers.

Who cares what that buffoon says anymore? He's not calling the shots and never was. They feed him the information. They give him the limited options; one of which is set-up to be clearly superior to the others (ie, the shiny and brave one). He wouldn't even know the right questions to ask assuming he wanted to ask them. So what's the point? I have no doubt that the country would be better off if they just handed the job to Tony Snow, President Bush is nothing more than the Public Spokesman for the Whitehouse, and he isn't even good at that. We'd be better off with someone who can at least speak.


P.S. Oh damn, I just realized that they already found their Tony Snow to be the next president, and he's called Mitt Romney. From what I understand, they use his shoulders to land fighter jets on when the weather is rough. All Hail Mitt!