|
« May 2012 |
Main
| August 2012 »
June 18, 2012
King Tut reclaims power in Egypt !!
Posted by John Breneman at 6:36 AM | Permalink
June 1, 2012
Bush portrait unveiling accomplished
Bush portrait
unveiling accomplished
By John Breneman
 George
W. Bush popped by the White House yesterday for old time's
sake -- dishing out his signature knee-slappers at the unveiling
of his official portrait.
And while it was vaguely inspiring to celebrate a rare
moment of bipartisanship, the triumphant return of the Smirker
in Chief also left me cringing.
Because the true portrait we are left with -- despite President
Obama's gracious acknowledgement that he showed "extraordinary
strength and resolve" after 9/11 -- is that of a president
who ignored red-flag warnings about Sept. 11, misled us
into the Iraq debacle and helped fuel the economic meltdown
under his watch.
And never lost his ability to joke about it.
Remember the time (March 26, 2004 at the Radio & Television
Correspondents' Assoc. dinner) he slayed 'em by starring
in a comedy
video in which he pretended to poke around the White House
looking for those phony WMDs?
What Bush found funny, I found appalling -- especially
as I imagined how the parents of a soldier slain in Iraq
must have reacted. But perhaps I was too harsh when I dubbed
Dubya's performance: "A
Comic Bomb."
And maybe I was too hard on the president when I dissected
this
(April 5, 2006) gut-busting standup routine and by saluting
him as "Commander-in-Cheek."
After all, he was the top banana -- a self-styled master
of mixing
laughter with terror. Check out his innate comic
timing as he warms up a crowd gathered at Kansas State University
for a Jan. 2006 talk about terror and 9/11 and spying with
a taste of his
classic "Everybody Loves W." shtick.
In retrospect, perhaps I was too hard on the distinguished
Texas Air National Guard hero in delivering my
armchair diagnosis (Jan. 6, 2006) that he suffered from
a particularly nasty case of "Iraq-tile dysfunction."
 But
hey, I did write an (albeit satiric) editorial
endorsing the man (Aug. 31, 2004), opining that
America needed a president "who is not afraid to take
action in the face of questionable intelligence -- a man
capable of making profound, far-reaching decisions undistracted
by knowledge, logic and reason."
Anyway, if with yesterday's East Room monologue Mr. Bush
meant to remind us that the wise-cracking 43rd president
was a stone-cold chucklehead -- all I can say is mission
accomplished.
RELATED MATERIAL:
Images,
essays and videos from what some consider the Golden Age
of Presidential Satire (2000-08)
Posted by John Breneman at 9:33 AM | Permalink
|
