Just when things are heating up for the GOP, you can always expect that old reliable “liberal” newspaper, The New York Times, to come to its rescue. And who is today’s superhero? Why, none other than our favorite Bushie lapdog, Elisabeth Bumiller! (remember the three B’s: always Beware Bumiller Bylines.)
In today’s Times, Bumiller publishes yet another shameless bootlick of Dubya: President Bush’s New Public Face: Confident and ‘Impishly Fun’. There is so much wrong with this article that it’s hard to know where to start.
But let’s begin with the fourth paragraph:
And at the end of an interview with a Belgian television correspondent last month, Mr. Bush blurted out to the young woman that she had “great eyes,” glanced away slyly and then a little sheepishly, but for the most part seemed sorry that the session was over.
Awwww, isn’t he cute, makin’ eyes at the ladies? What a charmer.
White House officials insist not and say that the frisky president people are seeing in public is simply the one he has kept private for the last four years.
Frisky, hmm? I think I see where this is going. Feeling a little damp, Ms. Bumiller?
But White House officials, Mr. Bush’s friends and Republicans allied with the administration readily say that re-election to a second term has made Mr. Bush more confident in office and changed the tenor of his presidency as well. The president has been buoyed, they add, by the elections in Iraq and recent stirrings toward his hope of democracy in the Middle East.
It’s easy to be buoyed by elections in Iraq when you ignore the fact that they haven’t actually accomplished anything there yet.
One statistic is telling: since he defeated Senator John Kerry last November, Mr. Bush has held a solo news conference every month - still fewer than many previous presidents, but a big jump, if he continues the pace, from the 17 solo news conferences he held in a first term known for an iron curtain between the White House and the press.
Not just “fewer than many previous presidents,” but far fewer — the fewest, by a long shot, of any modern presidency.
White House officials also say that Mr. Bush may be making more jokes in public, but he has not forgotten that the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, happened on his watch. “The president still carries tremendous burdens,” said Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff. “I see that every morning when he walks into the Oval Office and gets the overnight reports as to what’s been happening in the war on terror. He has to make decisions in many more areas of responsibility than most people realize.”
Hard decisions like, “should I put ketchup on my eggs or just eat them plain?” and “Should I screw soldiers and poor people separately, or can I screw them both at the same time?!”
As he has since becoming president, Mr. Bush gets massages most Sunday afternoons to relieve tension and muscle aches from exercise.
And since Elisabeth Bumiller has started covering Bush for the Times, Bush has been receiving regular massages in the “liberal” press.
These days Mr. Bush’s chief form of exercise is biking - he no longer runs since his knees gave out last year - and he has taken it on with the same aggressiveness as he did his old 6:45 miles. “He’s turned into a bike maniac,” said Mark McKinnon, a biking buddy of the president who was also his chief media strategist during the 2004 campaign. “He grinds, and he goes flat out from beginning to end.”
Oh, what a MAN!!! (I wonder if he ever dons his cheerleading outfit for old times’ sake). Now that would be hot!
Mr. Bush, he added, had lost eight pounds since the election. “He’s as calm and relaxed and confident and happy as I’ve ever seen him,” Mr. McKinnon said. Despite the beating he has taken on Social Security, other advisers say, Mr. Bush still presents a cheery face to the staff. “People are not walking around with their heads hung on Social Security,” said Joshua B. Bolten, the White House budget director. “When we have our Social Security meetings, and those are often very detailed, substantive meetings, he’s consistently upbeat.”
Georgie has been smiling lately because the grownups have given him a new PSP to play with during all those boring meetings. At a recent gathering on social security, Bush interrupted a Rovian diatribe by shouting “YEAH!” when he turned a Jango jump jet trick on Tony Hawk’s Underground 2.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, Rove trembles as Randall Terry and Scott Heldreth become the new face of the Republican party.
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