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Crank Call October 29
by
Peter Kurth
Dissident
Voice
November 1, 2003
“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” (www.smirkingchimp.com). This is 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, “Mothers are allowed to be proud of their
sons.” Even so, there was no need to bark at King, “Move on!” when 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. I got a bucket of them recently, when I
described Maria Shriver, the current Mrs. Schwarzenegger and soon-to-be first
lady of California, as “toothy, scrawny” and outdoing her Kennedy mother and
aunts “in the grinning death’s-head division.” All of which are provable
statements.
Between
lying about her son 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 they used to say about Clare Boothe Luce.)
“This
is the world according to Barbara Bush,” says Babs unnecessarily, “not George,
not George H.W., not anybody.” Earlier, during an appearance on “The Today
Show,” she described the field of Democratic contenders for her son’s job as “a
sorry group,” and said 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.
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. “Hey,” he continued, “I didn’t ride in
here on a watermelon cart, I know how it works.”
A
watermelon cart? Does everyone know what that means? It means that George H.W.
Bush isn’t Steppin Fetchit. And it means that “patrician” is the wrong word for
this bunch of Texan Corleones. Babs 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 the
coffee table. This is the same “never a problem” child she refused to seat near
the Queen of England at a White House dinner in 1989, so greatly did she fear
his “sarcasm and loose tongue.”
“I’m
the black sheep of my family,” Dubya told Her Majesty that night. “Who’s
yours?”
“None
of your business,” the Queen replied. Those were the days!
Someone
must have run a poll after the Bushes’ appearance on “Today,” because when Babs
turned up on Larry King, Poppy was nowhere in sight and Dubya, suddenly, was
never a drunk. Mrs. Bush thinks 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’s been
having 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 book "to ward off libel suits."
“Were
you pretty rough on some people?” asked King.
“No,
I really wasn’t,” said Babs. “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 [they asked], 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. 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.
If
you want the truth, Barbara Bush is 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 grandma? No, I’ve just heard too many Hillary
Clinton jokes. So, make my day! Read my lips! Bring ’em on! The letters, that
is.
Peter
Kurth is the author of international bestselling books including Anastasia:
The Riddle of Anna Anderson, Isadora: A Sensational Life, and a
biography of the anti-fascist journalist Dorothy Thompson, American
Cassandra: The Life of Dorothy Thompson. His essays have appeared in Salon,
Vanity Fair, New York Times Book Review, and many others. Peter lives in
Burlington, Vermont. He can be reached at: peterkurth@peterkurth.com. Visit
his website at: http://www.peterkurth.com/
Other
Articles by Peter Kurth
* The Gang
that Couldn’t Talk Straight On Iraq
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