Bushed

To say the least, we're Bushed. Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne called it the End of the Bush Era in his most recent column:

"He can decide to help us in the transition to what comes next. Or he can cling stubbornly to his past and thereby doom himself to frustrating irrelevance."

We were in full agreement with that assessment, particularly after pulling hairs while subjected to the scripted, insincere and completely removed tone of yesterday evening's spat of talking points. Perhaps the Administration wasn't looking for that shining moment on the aircraft carrier deck - how can you against an undefined enemy? What: demonize Mother Nature and Acts of God in a selfish bout of political damage control? Of course, the hacks, former oil execs, Halliburton stock holders, trigger happy hawks and Reagan Geriatric Quartets at the White House and on Capitol Hill wouldn't have their "morals" and "compassionate conservatism" stoop so low. But, come one, give us a little feeling, a little impassioned half-time prayer in the locker room, a teary moment reminiscent of Roosevelt, Kennedy, Churchill ... Parcell, Lombardi ... maybe Pacino in Any Given Sunday ... that moment when you look down from the tele-prompter, shake your head, have America stunned for those hanging moments of sudden and choking silence where you go "You know what ..." and you do something so unbelievably bully pulpittish as to jerk your notecards from underneath you and shred them to pieces, throwing them behind you and then really press at the tragedy of the situation straight from the heart ...

No - instead we get moments as forgettable as a Simpsons re-run, that bit of sound in the background over the loud hum of the vacuum cleaner, the ring of the phone, cats blasting jokes over draft at the local club and the mucus-laden cough of Grandpa flipping channels from the love seat. We said that for every Fox News cloned pundit that gave the President "good marks" (all the while giving the camera a sweaty hint of "why am I saying this" as if the gun barrel of a lost job and a blacklist was pointed at their head) we'd gain a dollar. Certain of our overnight earnings and blinded by the million ching chings blinging our daydreams, we were comforted by fantasies of a Big Pimpin' yacht extravaganza off the shores of some carnival festive Caribbean isle calling it a night and braced for the public policy nightmare of the next day.