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The Yuck Stops Here George W. Bush’s performance at the Radio and Television Correspondents’ annual dinner March 24 is a tough act to follow. In fact, it’s put folks like me out of business for the foreseeable future. That speech will go down in history as NAFTA for domestic political humorists. Like some of my peers, I’ve been wailing on the Bush gang for the better part of a year on this very issue. And now, like the search for WMDs themselves, it’s time to stop. When an administration so consumed by nepotism cries uncle, we need to listen. Naturally I’ve been despondent. I sit in my room for days on end and refuse to riff. In conversation, I’ve dropped the puns and the Karl Rove jokes. Friends and relatives email me fresh articles on Condi Rice, GW’s dental records . . . but nothing seems to help. Of course, this is the land of opportunity. I’ll find something else to do. I’ll apply for some of that free trade retraining money. Maybe I’ll buy that Matthew Lesko book on government grants. I’ll learn to tell Michael Jackson jokes, Janet Jackson jokes, and Jesse Jackson jokes. I’ll put together top ten lists of Paris Hilton videos. I’ll entertain at Japanese corporate conventions. I know there’s a cliché, one trick pony gig out there for me somewhere. And as a patriotic American, I’m perfectly willing to be put out to pasture for a while if it means more self-deprecatory monologues from the Commander-in-Chief. For cosmic symmetry, I might even try the oil business. Paul Krugman should throw in the towel too, not because it’s the right thing to do, but because his column has become more predictable than a Russian presidential election. Sure, the President’s delivery was worse than William Hung’s, but you have to give credit where credit is due. George W. Bush has already clinched next year’s MoveOn.org competition , so you folks at home save yourself the money, trouble, and hard drive space. He can articulate the fatal flaws of the 43rd Presidency better than Susan Estrich, and without the cigarette voice. Bush is more critical of Bush than Katrina vanden Heuvel, which is saying something. He’s also got a better sense of humor, which is saying very little. He did a better job narrating funny photos Weekend Update-style than Dennis Miller did color commentating on Monday Night Football. Meanwhile, Bush’s staff writers did more for the cause of honesty in government than a dozen Michael Moore films ever will. True, no catastrophic blunder worth trivializing is ever easy. For a week or two after the Bush bit, the president-turned-comedian thing wasn’t working out as well as the actor-turned-governor thing or even as well as the frat-boy-turned-baseball-team-owner thing. Suddenly, WMD stood for W Mocks the Dead. CENTCOM stood for Comedy Central. When the 9/11 families and the families of American casualties in Iraq are both angry with you, you check the mirror in the morning for a turban. Word on K Street was the correspondents’ dinner was yet another questionable preemptive strike. Cheney’s blood pressure was up, and Bush’s numbers were down. Leno’s job was safe, but GW’s was up for grabs. And just when it looked like things couldn’t get any worse for GW, along came Dick Clarke, the host of American Grandstand. Between Wesley Clark and Richard Clarke, one sees the beginnings of a conspiracy. We should be hearing from Ramsey Clark any day now. But this Dick Clarke was singing an old song. I thought Paul O’Neill’s had a better beat. This Dick Clarke dropped the blame and the ball. This Dick Clarke was looking to promote himself instead of some inner city kid from Philadelphia. Get real, Dick. I heard the 1993 WTC bombing from my office window. As of December 2000, you and your friends still hadn’t heard it. Maybe it’s asking too much, but could we please have a cabinet level whistleblower without a book, movie rights, or a candidacy? Sure enough, as Dick Clarke has begun to drop down on the charts, GW has begun to climb back up. Thanks to swing voters whose political convictions consist of the most recent negative campaign ad they saw while watching American Idol, Bush is virtually even with Kerry at the polls again, and all the president’s men are cranking it out like it was the old days on Your Show of Shows. Some upcoming zingers: The only weapons of mass destruction in Iraq are leftover Ba’athists. . . What’s the difference between weapons of mass destruction and GW’s military record? We may one day find GW’s military record . . . How many WMDs does it take to screw in a light bulb? One to screw it in, and none to screw us over. The modern history of US presidents co-opting pop culture begins with Richard Nixon’s 1968 “Sock it to me!” on Laugh In and continues with Gerald Ford’s 1976 kickoff of an episode of Saturday Night Live. It continues with Jimmy Carter’s “lusted in my heart” interview with Playboy and moves on to Ronald Reagan’s ill-informed use of Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA. It reaches new heights with Bush 41’s 1992 appearance on SNL and the subsequent command performance of Dana Carvey at the White House. Bill Clinton’s embracing of MTV, The Tonight Show, and nookie on the side set a new standard for presidential psuedo-hipness. But George W. Bush has surpassed it. He may not be Friars Club material, but he is getting more comfortable over time with the teleprompter. We haven’t had such a profound, almost laughable mea culpa from a government official since Janet Reno took responsibility for Waco. Perhaps not since the days of Harry Truman. The yuck stops here. Now all we need from GW is a series of zany, hysterical, outrageous, tongue-in-cheek admissions of culpability for a sluggish economy, a huge federal budget deficit, gutted environmental laws, lax security at the borders, and soaring prices at the pumps. With a November 2 deadline for democratic elections in the United States, timing is everything. Click here to rant back. |