When W. Was Whoever Was Number 2

A parting wave to Nancy P.

How about a little 2007 nostalgia!

Which has never been read!

Except by a now-defunct online publication of the day, which found it too dismissive of Dick Cheney. Can you imagine?           

"Mr. Bush does not listen," editorializes the New York Times.

            That has to sting. Or would sting, if the President were listening.

            Rather, it is we — we who wish he would unplug his ears so we can tell him how clueless he is — who are sounding stung. Frank Rich has gone so far as to suggest that Senator-elect James Webb should have yielded to the temptation to "slug" Bush at a White House reception.

            Hey, if the President can ignore the war news, he can slip a punch.

            Would you want to wake up and smell the coffee, if you were George W. Bush? If you were the worst two-term President since Ulysses S. Grant?

And Grant could at least fall back on a winning war record, a strong prose style and friendship with Mark Twain. What does Bush have? The first lady, it is said, begrudges all the time he spends with Condi, so he can't really kick back with either of them. His parents always preferred Jeb. His Merlin, Karl Rove, has lost his evil powers. Christians don't love him so much anymore — and they love everyone.

If the Presidential dog, Barney, is still supportive, it is only because no one has the heart to explain the situation to the little fella. To Barney, I mean.

            Forget about pulling the President's coat. It's time to pull his vice-president out from under him.

            Texas liberals were of course not pleased to see W. move on up to the White House, they'll tell you, but they never thought he'd turn out this bad. Texas is a weak-governor state. Real power rests with the lieutenant governor, who under Bush was Democrat Bob Bullock, a moderate-conservative old boy. So Bush was a moderate-conservative old boy. As Molly Ivins has put it, "Bush was smart enough to do what Bob Bullock told him to for four years."

            Now, as president of a strong-vice-president nation, he's a right-wing warmonger: just about smart enough to listen to Dick Cheney for six years.

            Cheney is even lower in the polls than Bush. Let's special-prosecute his ass, flip Scooter Libby, and bingo. Bush gets to appoint another veep, but his choice is subject to approval by both houses of Congress. So his opposition has leverage: Bush may be able to get along without input from the Times, but he's nobody without a titular number two. And while he's coming up with one to suit the Congress, who will be the proverbial heartbeat away?

             During the President's first press conference after the mid-terms, a Texas reporter asked him, "Does Nancy Pelosi look much like Bob Bullock to you?" Bush laughed this off as an "inside joke," and of course the idea was that Pelosi was the Democrat he would have to deal with. But what if he imprints upon her? Before long, this president may be so transformed that we'll be moved to sing, "Wish they all could be California girls."