George Bush's Addiction To Himself:
Since we can never stop comparing Bill Clinton to George W. Bush, here's another: when you're President, it's time to give up some old habits. With Clinton, even acknowledging that Republicans went monkeyfuck insane about it in order to find one thing to attempt to bring down his presidency, it was his bad habit of fucking chicks with bigger hair and less power. Whatever you thought about Paula Jones, there's no denying Clinton fucked (and fucking the face counts as fucking) Gennifer Flowers and Monica Lewinsky (and if you know any other names of alleged Clinton fuck dolls, you need to get a fuckin' job). So there's a good many of us that say about Bill Clinton: would it have been that fuckin' hard to keep your dick out of the mouths of the interns or, indeed, any orifice not belonging to Hillary for eight fuckin' years? (And we might add: Man, Monica must have sucked the Clinton crank like a Hoover set on deep pile for it to be worth it.)

With Bush, there's his schedule and his beddy-bye time. If you're the goddamn President, despite whatever whines and protestations you wanna make about "me time," your ass belongs to the American people, and if the event demands it (even if it's not a fundraiser), suck it up and lose a wink or two. Take, for instance, this from Elisabeth "Oh, Sweet Jesus, If I Can't Blow Him In Person, I'll Do It In Print" Bumiller's New York Times article about Bush's feckless visit to Argentina: "[T]he always-on-time, early-rising Mr. Bush found himself so much at the mercy of Argentina's late, leisurely scheduling that on Friday he sat down to a dinner with Western Hemisphere leaders at 10:15 p.m., already past his bedtime, and did not get back to his hotel room until nearly 12:40 a.m. The next day, an administration official said Mr. Bush would skip a two-hour lunch with the leaders because of 'time served' at dinner the night before." Later, Bumiller writes, since the lunch was canceled due to the frustrating, worthless summit (due, in no small part, to the United States), "[B]y 3:30 p.m., evidently on an empty stomach, Mr. Bush said he was sticking to his itinerary - a 4:05 p.m. Air Force One departure from Argentina to go to Brazil - and he did, leaving an assistant secretary of state behind to sweat out the trade talks. They ended hours later in failure."

Look at that: Bush simply didn't care. And even if he wants to claim he did care, well, fuck, like in Florida classrooms and during Texas holidays, what you say is worthless compared to what you do. Let's say you're, like, the President of Uruguay and you hear that the U.S. President feels like he's done "time served" with your Latin American ass. You can either go begging, tail between your legs, to the assistant secretary of state or you can tell the U.S. to go fuck itself. Jesus, allegedly the Free Trade Area of the Americas actually meant something to Bush. Can you imagine how he reacts to something he doesn't give a shit about? Oh, right, that'd be the bodies in the streets of New Orleans.

Bumiller has been the chronicler of the leader of the free world's inability to veer from his schedule. In January 2002, she wrote, "Mr. Bush is usually in bed by 10 p.m., meaning his social dinners are early and quick. Guests arrive at the White House about 6:30 p.m., around the time that the president walks back to the residence from the Oval Office. Dinner is at 7:30 p.m. and lasts only an hour." In March 2004, Bumiller writes of the horrible rigidity of the President's day:

"[T]he president is generally awake by 5 a.m., when he has coffee and reads the newspapers in bed with his wife. By 7 a.m. he is in the Oval Office, where he makes calls, often to leaders overseas or his parents, before his national security briefing at 8.

"For the rest of the day, Mr. Bush is in more meetings -- with the National Security Council, his campaign staff, his domestic policy staff, his speechwriters. He often eats a lunch of salad alone while he channel-surfs in a small dining room off the Oval Office. He exercises in the White House gym, usually in the late morning or early evening. Either way, he's back at the residence around 6 for dinner at 7. The teetotaling president retires around 9 p.m., even when he has guests, and takes to bed a giant briefing book to read as preparation for the following day. Lights are out at 10."

Now beyond the obvious lies about "reading," whether it be the "newspapers" or the "giant briefing book" (which, one imagines, might be so giant because it requires lots of big letters and pictures), there's something stomach-churningly disconcerting about having a President who is not just predictable, but addicted to his schedule, like, say, an alcoholic or cokehead has to have regular infusions of liquor or coke. The thing about addicts? Every junkie and long-gone hobo will tell you that you need more and more shit in your body to get that high. A couple of weeks ago, in the Huffington Post, Nora Ephron wrote that she sees Bush's ever-intensifying exercise regimen as a non-medicated way to stave off depression.

But let's take this a bit further and posit the Bush uber-schedule, including the exercise, in a couple of ways: if one is a recovering addict, one needs to be kept to a tight schedule so that one's mind doesn't stray to the sweet release of Lady 'Caine or the warm nuzzle of Gentleman Jack. Or, to go in another direction, that addicts transfer that addictive personality to something else. Ever seen the end of an AA meeting? Those fuckers are two-fistin' the cigarettes, heavingly inhaling that nicotine as fast as possible. With our dear President, perhaps it is the schedule that's the addiction - the desire for control over all elements around him, the monomania with which he governs. That would include the exercise.

And the basic fix of the rigid schedule is no longer good enough. It has to be more intense, more disciplined. And fuck everyone else, even the leaders of the Western Hemisphere, for interfering with that schedule. The presidents of Argentina, Peru, and certainly Venezuela can eat his dust as he makes sure that his time on earth is his own.

The only exception? A campaign rally, which Bush veered off to in Virginia to try to "help" Republican gubernatorial candidate Jerry Kilgore. What could be a better fix for the unleashed ego, the wild-eyed, selfish child, than a large crowd screaming how wonderful he is? Sure as hell beats all those fuckin' Argentineans burnin' shit and chantin' that he's useless and/or evil.