What Is This, A Cruel Hoax?

A fascinating article written by a former Bush speechwriter in Men's Style about Bush's final days. Hat tip, Naveen.

I don't know what the writer's intention was, but I come away a lot more sympathetic towards the former President. I mean, maybe he is supposed to appear clueless in the face of the economic crisis...but the way I read it, I feel sympathy for him. This economic crisis is crazy. It came out of nowhere. No one can understand this shit. The smartest people in the world couldn't possibly wrap their heads around it with any certainty. Bush's confusion and frustration is HUMANIZING, not evidence of stupidity. I much prefer someone who admits confusion than the cocky bullshitter who feigns understanding and confidence in the face of something they don't understand.

And I'm sorry, this is almost the several paragraphs I've read in weeks -

The president, like me, didn’t seem to be in love with any of the available options. He always believed Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic nominee. “Wait till her fat keister is sitting at this desk,” he once said (except he didn’t say “keister”). He didn’t think much of Barack Obama. After one of Obama’s blistering speeches against the administration, the president had a very human reaction: He was ticked off. He came in one day to rehearse a speech, fuming. “This is a dangerous world,” he said for no apparent reason, “and this cat isn’t remotely qualified to handle it. This guy has no clue, I promise you.” He wound himself up even more. “You think I wasn’t qualified?” he said to no one in particular. “I was qualified."

The president didn’t think much of Joe Biden either. “Dana, did you tell them my line?” the president once asked with a smile on his face.

“No, Mr. President,” Dana replied hesitantly. “I didn’t.”

He paused for a minute. I could see him thinking maybe he shouldn’t say it, but he couldn’t resist. “If bullshit was currency,” he said straight-faced, “Joe Biden would be a billionaire.” Everyone in the room burst out laughing.

Bush seemed to feel considerable unease with the choice of McCain as well. I think he liked Romney best. (The rumor was that so did Karl Rove.) My guess was the president hadn’t so easily forgotten the endless slights he’d suffered, but there was little he could do. To him, McCain’s defeat would be a repudiation of the Bush administration, so McCain had to win. The president, who had quite a good political mind, was clearly not impressed with the McCain operation. I was once in the Oval Office when the president was told a campaign event in Phoenix he was to attend with McCain suddenly had to be closed to the press. The president didn’t understand why when the whole purpose of holding the event had been to show Bush and McCain together so the press would stop asking why the two wouldn’t be seen together. If the event was closed to the press, the whole thing didn’t make sense.

“If he doesn’t want me to go, fine,” the president said. “I’ve got better things to do.”

Eventually, someone informed the president that the reason the event was closed was that McCain was having trouble getting a crowd. Bush was incredulous—and to the point. “He can’t get 500 people to show up for an event in his hometown?” he asked. No one said anything, and we went on to another topic. But the president couldn’t let the matter drop. “He couldn’t get 500 people? I could get that many people to turn out in Crawford.” He shook his head. “This is a five-spiral crash, boys.”

We tried to move on to something else. But the president wouldn’t let go. He was stuck on the Phoenix event. At one point, he looked off into space and said to no one in particular, “What is this—a cruel hoax?”

Bush could have a second career as a Baldwin-esque foil on a good sitcom.