"Every time you put an alcoholic in the White House..."

“.....Every time you put an alcoholic in the white house, the same thing happens. Our foreign policy turns to shit and we start spying on one another. Same thing happened with Nixon. Spent the entire Arab-Isreali war bombed out of his head on Chateau Margaux. Your man — Heath was it? — rang him up to try and avert nuclear catastrophe, Kissinger had to get on the line and tell him the president was in no state to speak but would call him in the morning.”

“But Bush isn’t drinking now is he?” I asked.

“In a way it would better for everyone if he was. At least then the beast inside of him would be fed and watered. It would be happy. It wouldn’t have to go looking for fresh fights.”

“You mean the war in Iraq? You think that’s got something to do with all of this?"

He nodded. “Oh yes. Iraq is a classic addict’s endgame: damned if you stayed, damned if you go, so all that left is simply to hang on, and wish it would all simply go away. Did you see him on TV the other day pleading with the American people: ‘this time it’ll be different, this time I’ll quit, just let me have a few more troops, and then we can leave, I promise.’ He’ll never quit. He can’t. He’s an alcoholic.....”

— Douglas Kelsey & Patrick Miller, In The Rooms (2009)

With Amigos like these

“Amigo! Amigo! How you doing, Silvio? Good to see you!” — President Bush, caught by a microphone addressing Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi at the G8 summit. “I read the courts are after you again. It’s unbelievable. I’ve never seen anything like it. Constantly after you.” On Tuesday, the day after the lunch, a formal apology was issued to the Italian prime minister for raising the corruption charges. At the next day’s lunch, the microphones were cut off, but a few days later Bush ended a private meeting with the world's leaders to a close with the words, “Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter.” He then punched the air, grinning, as the rest of those present including Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock.

He's getting demob happy. The GOP, meanwhile, has been attempting to spin Obama's forthcoming trip to Europe. "I do think that, frankly, Barack Obama looks toward Europe for a lot of his inspiration. I think John McCain is going to make sure that America stays America" says Romney. "Well this is why [Obama] is a popular candidate in Europe, because there is such an anti-American feeling and he is sort of capturing that," says Giuliani. A member of the Bush delegation, meanwhile, approached German Chancellor Merkel's foreign policy advisor, to stymie Obama's planned speech at the Brandenburg gate.

Andrew Sullivan predicts "an extended media orgasm. Europeans are desperate to fall in love with America again. This young, black Kennedy figure will likely create iconic scenes - reminding the old of the America that once inspired them and the young of the capacity for change that America still contains. And it's simply great theater. One thing we have learned about the Obama campaign that has been overlooked: they understand theater. In fact, no campaign has understood theater this way - and its powerful relationship to politics - since Deaver managed Reagan."

The fear that your leader might be popular abroad is new to me. The British are only too used to our Prime Ministers being more popular abroad than they are at home. Typical English self-deprecation or just the fact that our baseline belief in the untrustworthiness of politicians? More likely because nobody cares about our foreign policy anymore.

How The Onion got everything right

"While serious liberal news organizations such as the New York Times helped disseminate the White House’s specious rationale for war, The Onion’s lampoons turned out to be far more accurate. The Bush gang, the paper said, was hell-bent on invading Iraq, and it would deploy any means necessary in order to do so. Throughout the fall campaign, The Onion continued to see right through Bush’s bluster..... When the war finally began in March 2003, the paper continued to mock both the Bush administration’s theatrics and its claims to an easy victory... Amid the chaotic aftermath of the invasion, many media observers, as well as Democratic Party officials, began to turn against the Bush administration, attacking its incompetent handling of the occupation. The Onion, however, continued its relentless assault on both the design and the execution of the war."

From Theodore Hamm’s The New Blue Media, which views the last few years as seen through Onion headlines:—

• “Holy F**king S**t — Attack on America. U.S. Vows to Defeat Whoever It Is We’re at War With” — Sept 11, 2001
  
• “The Age of Irony Comes to an End: Shattered Nation Longs to Care About Stupid Bullshit Again” — Sept 19, 2001
• “Military Promises ‘Huge Numbers’ for Gulf War II: The Vengeance” — March 2002
  
• “Bush Won’t Stop Asking Cheney If We Can Invade Yet” — September 11, 2002
  
• “Bush Seeks U.N. Support for ‘U.S. Does Whatever It Wants Plan’” — October 2002
• "Dead Iraqi would have loved Democracy" — March 2003
  
• “Gen. Tommy Franks Quits Army to Pursue Solo Bombing Projects” — May 2003 (“The years I’ve spent with the Army have been amazing, and we did some fantastic bombing. But at this point, I feel like I’ve taken it as far as I can. It’s time for me to move on and see what I can destroy on my own.”)

It's been pointed out by others: what a gift to satirists the Bush presidency has been, if only because Bush made so many bad decisions that all the comedy writers had to do was invert it and they got a) something close to the truth and b) a laugh. I've noticed some uneasiness in the audience recently when Jon Stewart starts in on Obama. The other night even Stewart noticed. "Its okay laugh at him," he reassured the audience, but the laughs didn't get much stronger. I don't think they were holding back out of piety or reverence. It was just that Stewart jokes don't have much traction on Obama, who already comes armed with a sense of irony, sharp intelligence and a leiusurely feel for the ridiculous. He cancels Stewart out.

Who's got game?

"A team player, preferring mostly to help teammates score rather than to shoot himself. Obama did show some defensive softness but a surprising toughness any time his basket was threatened, and while he at times fell prey to his ambition, when it was game point, he showed a degree of leadership, taking charge with the ball in his hands... driving hard to his left for the game-winning lay-off." — Bryant Gumbel on Obama's basketball game, Real Sports, HBO.

"In November 1992, Bush and Roland Betts were in Santa Fe to host a dinner party, but they had just enough time for one set of doubles. The former Yale classmates were on opposite sides of the net. 'There was only one problem—my side won the first set,' recalls Betts. 'O.K., then we're going two out of three,' Bush decreed. Bush's side takes the next set. But Betts's side is winning the third set when it starts to snow. Hard, fat flakes. The catering truck pulls up. But Bush won't let anybody quit. 'He's pissed. George runs his mouth constantly,' says Betts indulgently. 'He's making fun of your last shot, mocking you, needling you, goading you—he never shuts up!' They continued to play tennis through a driving snowstorm." — Gail Sheehy, The Accidental Candidate.

Bush Says Iraq was 'the Fun Thing To Do'

WASHINGTON—Despite harsh criticism from both sides of the political aisle, the U.S. populace, and former members of his own administration, President Bush once again defended his 2003 decision to invade Iraq, saying that, in the end, it was the fun thing to do.

"On Sept. 11, 2001, we as a nation faced a difficult decision, an important decision, a decision between what was fun and what was wrong," Bush said during a speech before Pentagon officials Wednesday. "We could have backed down and allowed the terrorists to win. But instead, we stood up to the challenge before us, and we said, 'Bring it on—bring the good times on!'"

"Mark my words," Bush continued. "When the dust settles and the smoke clears, history will look back on the Iraq War as a total blast." — The Onion

Bush is very keen to let history be the judge of his actions, as we all know, which begs the question of how many wars get better — upon reflection, with the passage of time. The second world war: most thought that was a Good Idea at the time and it remains so. Vietnam: people thought it a Bad Idea at the time and still think so. The cold war: one of the participants had a heart attack, so we'll never know. I'm no historian but I can't think of a single example of war that improved with age. Who knows — maybe everyone thought the 100-years war was rubbish at the time but when it got to a hundred they thought: wow. A hundred. Or maybe The Trojan war seemed like a total waste of time until Homer came along to write about it. If anything history is a harsher judge. Someone needs to tell the president that today represents the high water mark of approval for his war. It's downhill from here.

If you can think of any counter examples, let me know.