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AMERICAN BATTLEAXE
BY PETER KURTH (published 10.29.03)
“What is more dangerous than a
stupid man who believes that divine inspiration permits him to disregard
not only the popular will, appeals to logic, moderation and decency, but
even the evidence of his own eyes and ears that his policies have been
disastrous?”
Peter Lee posed this question last week on The Smirking Chimp, one of
my favorite anti-Bush Web sites and essential reading for those in despair,
now that Dum-Dum’s parents have taken to the airwaves to tell us how
“brilliant” he is.
That’s
right — “brilliant.” Not to mention
“precious” and “courageous,” according to his mom.
The
First Battleaxe, a.k.a. Barbara Bush, adds that George Jr., despite his own
confessions and the memory of anyone who came near him in the first 40
years of his life, was “never alcoholic” and, for that matter,
“never a problem. He wasn’t.”
Mrs.
Bush delivered herself of these remarks during an interview with
CNN’s Larry King. Granted, she’s promoting a book — Reflections: Life After the White House —
and, as she observes correctly, “Mothers are allowed to be proud of
their sons.”
Even
so, there was no need to bark at King, “Move on!” when he pressed
about her views on abortion and her son Neil’s visits to brothels in
Thailand. The woman Newsweek
calls “America’s
favorite grandmother” has the manners of a toad.
Go
ahead — write me a nasty letter. Between lying about Ding-Dong and
smacking people with golf clubs, Mrs. Bush is said to regret that she has
sometimes been “too outspoken” in public life, but I
wouldn’t take this as a sign that she intends to shut up. (“Outspoken
by whom?” as Dorothy Parker
once said about Clare Boothe Luce, another Republican liar in
pearls.)
“This
is the world according to Barbara Bush,” Mrs. Bush remarks
unnecessarily, “not George, not George H.W., not anybody.”
Earlier, during an appearance on “The Today Show,” Barbara Bush
described the field of Democratic contenders for her son’s job as
“a sorry group,” and said that her “gut feeling is that
all the media is [sic] against George, Republicans, any Republican.”
Where she gets this idea I can’t imagine, since every major media
outlet in the country persists in describing the Bush family as
“patrician” and Georges I and II as “statesmen” of
some kind.
If
you want to know how wrong that assessment is, just listen to George I, who
joined his wife on “Today” and — if I may use a word much
in favor with the conservative horde — whined about the “vicious rhetoric” Democratic
candidates have lately been hurling at his son.
“The
one who makes, you know, the most outrageous charges against the president,
and then he gets his 20 seconds on the evening news,” said Poppy,
still unable to string an English sentence together after 15 years on the
dole. “Hey,” he continued, “I didn’t ride in here
on a watermelon cart, I know how it works.”
A
watermelon cart? Does everyone here
know what that means? It means that George H.W. Bush thinks he isn’t
Steppin Fetchit. And it means that “patrician” is the wrong
word for this bunch of Texas Corleones. “Bar” went on to say
that the president — meaning the current one — is “a
dirty dog” who doesn’t listen to anyone’s advice, and
whom she recently had to scold for putting his feet up on her coffee table.
This is the same “never a problem” child she refused to seat near
the Queen of England in 1989, so greatly did she fear his “sarcasm
and loose tongue.”
“I’m
the black sheep of my family,” Dubya grinned at Her Majesty.
“Who’s yours?”
“None
of your business,” the Queen replied.
Anyhow,
someone must have run a poll after the Bushes’ appearance on
“Today,” because when "Bar" later turned up on Larry
King, Poppy was nowhere in sight, and Dubya, suddenly, was never a drunk.
Mrs. Bush thinks that her son “brought that on himself, truthfully,
with all his Jack Daniels — uh, that is, ‘Choose me or Jack
Daniels,’ or whatever it was he said” during the 2000
presidential campaign. She has a little trouble with English herself, but
says she wrote Reflections
unassisted, and typed it with one finger — two when she got
“real excited.” Quoting Poppy, Newsweek reports that her publishers had to cut large chunks of
the text "to ward off libel suits."
“Were
you pretty rough on some people?” asked King.
“No,
I really wasn’t,” said “Bar”. “But they just
wanted to be sure that … today is such a suing world. And having
written a book 10 years ago, when nobody hardly mentioned being sued,
suddenly, are you sure that’s true? And I said, ‘No, I’m
not sure it’s true, but it’s true according to my
diary.’”
What
a relief! No wonder Little Hitler thinks he’s king. If it’s
true in my diary – well, it’s true.
You’ll
be glad to know that Barbara Bush prays each night before going to bed. She
doesn’t like flowers — they’re a “waste of
money.” She thinks the death penalty is “a deterrent” and
that “all those appeals” take up too much time. She is, in fact, a nasty bit of work, and
when she declares with pride that she’s “not even a college
graduate,” it’s the one thing she says you can really believe.
Do
I have it out for “America’s
favorite grandmother?” No, I’ve just heard too many repulsive
Hillary Clinton jokes. So, make my day! Read my lips! Bring ’em on!
And fuck you, while we’re at it.
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