The George Bush Merry-Go-Round of Fucktardery:
So we've finally come full circle in the presidency of George W. Bush, back to those heady pre-9/11 days, and just five murderous years later. Remember that summer beforeeverythingchanged? God, it was fun. When his job approval ratings hovered ominously near 50 percent and trending downward. When Comedy Central could have an entire show dedicated to mocking him (and it wasn't The Daily Show). When the issue of the day that Bush was considering with all the thinkin' his head could manage was stem cell research.

It'd be so fuckin' poetic if Bush used his first veto on August 9, the fifth anniversary of his bullshit little speech declaring the use of embryos for fetal stem cell experiments off limits for federal funding, acting as if he had really gone on some monk-like retreat, wandering into the Texas scrub to consider the ethical dilemma of the matter, delving into Kierkegaard and Aquinas as he sought a utilitarian answer to what he said he considered the most profound questions of the truths of existence, of the meaning of ethics and morality. Instead, he treated us, the citizens of the nation, like dogs that had shit on the kitchen floor, rubbing our noses in his bible, saying, "[I] believe human life is a sacred gift from our Creator. I worry about a culture that devalues life." At least there was an attempt at subtlety.

Now his thuggish press secretary is telling the media that embryonic stem cell research is "murder" even as a just-short-of-two-thirds of the Senate approves federal funding for the research after a debate that flirted with respectability. And because he can't actually issue a signing statement that says he thinks he can stop the funding because he is constitutionally empowered to protect the nation, Bush will use his first veto. As he promised back when he had just a smidge more power than he does now.

And as for the G-8 buffoonery, goddamnit, puking in the lap of the Japanese prime minister seems positively dignified in retrospect. Beyond the little bit of dialogue picked up by a mike, where Bush said, "Shit" (does he get fined by the FCC?) and he acted like the spazzy kid with ADD playin' the President at United Nations Day in third grade, there was his bizarro treatment of the elected Chancellor of Germany like she was a secretary who had typed too many letters. Look at the pictures of this President Bush as he heads over to Angela Merkel to give her a brief shoulder grab/rub. First look at his eyes, those dead, cold eyes, like Karloff's Frankenstein's monster, or the kind of eyes of someone so immune to human contact and warmth that he only wakes up when watching a particularly gruesome snuff film, where sick fucks jack off on the body parts of a Mexican woman they just chopped up. Look at his hands on her shoulders. He doesn't even know what he's doing. He doesn't even know that unless he warms up her shoulder muscles first, he's just gonna give her one hell of a cramp. Circular movements with the thumbs, motherfucker, not whole hand squeezing. Christ, no wonder Laura spends more time with her waterproof vibrator in the tub than in bed with her husband.

Merkel's reaction, though, is not just one of pain, not just one of "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" It's a look of frustration, of supreme irritation, of having picked up after a child time and time again but the little fucker just thinks it's funny to keep dumping shit on the floor. It's almost like she wants to say, "Focus, you dumb fuckin' shitkicker wannabe. There's goddamn wars going on and you're wanderin' around, acting like we're a toilet paper corporation deciding if we wanna put flowers or butterflies on our new brand." And then Bush walks off with his zombie stagger, blank stare drawing him to the next embarassment. Shit, Bush got off easy. If Ronald Reagan had tried to massage Margaret Thatcher, he'd've pulled back nubs.

So, if there was any doubt left, for anyone, all the shine and polish and spin in the world ain't gonna cover-up the fact that we are back to where we were, that pre-9/11 mindset that made us think, "God, just don't let him blow up the whole fuckin' world before he's outta there."