Bush’s Media Blitz

Thought I’d take a minute to lob a few more wisecracks at the former C-I-C. Planned not to, but couldn’t help it.

Didn’t watch every appearance, or all of the ones I did. But I came away with an impression of the current state of my relationship with George W Bush.

I like that he’s not allowing himself to be drawn into speculating on Obama’s performance. As usual, I suspect an underhanded motive, but I have to admit it comes off classy. I think he’s still smarting from the spanking Jimmy Carter gave him in the press while W was still in office, but whatever his motives, I respect his consistency on the issue.

I’m sure the blogosphere is burning up about him writing that Kanye West’s televised criticism of him was the low point of his presidency. I feel powerfully drawn to the subject myself, but as I say, I’m sure it’s been covered elsewhere by better-read bloggers and real-life columnists. It has to have been.

I only saw clips of him on Hannity. I really can’t stand Sean Hannity’s act. It just grates on me, I can’t shrug it off. Pompous, cocky, blowhard, empty-head; these are all phrases that jump to mind when contemplating Sean Hannity. There’s a reason nobody does a Sean Hannity impression, he’s his own living caricature.

Caught W on Oprah. Meh. They both played their roles pitch-perfectly. Which is to say, it was really boring. I liked when he talked about his dad, the ailing George Bush senior. But I always like it when guys have Daddy Issues, I have a few of my own. There’s a great Elton John song, below, that I always think about when I think about W and my Daddy Issues.



Saw Matt Lauer’s evening interview but missed W’s “Today” show appearance. Again, to Bush’s credit, the theme he returned to again and again was as non-partisan as can be. “Buy my book.” Let the market speak! He cannot be swayed. He’s here on a mission of commerce. He won’t even be drawn into defending his own record. “Read the book.”

I think his goal is twofold. First, capitalism. Buy the goddamn book! He only gets $200K a year on his federal pension. In his circles, that’s chump change.

And the other reason he is remaining so steadfastly silent on the off-the-cuff, newsworthy statements, must be because he has been well advised not to get drawn in. There’s nothing the media and the left-wingosphere would love more than some new Bush malapropism clips to have our way with. And with his reputation already in the crapper—and a book to sell—he can’t afford to make news.

Just sell books.

I’m watching him on O’Reilly now, and O’Reilly has done the best job so far of getting Bush outside his comfort zone. Lauer, by contrast, was earnestly hard-hitting, and boy, do I find earnest embarrassing. (But I did love the follow-up interview Lauer did with Kanye West who commented on Bush’s comments, and kept sternly advising the crew and people on the set to shut up because he was talking. He was unintentionally hilarious. I hope there’s a new SNL this week.)

But O’Reilly has been the least toadying, ball-licking interviewer by a mile so far. Because even when a former President is on his show, O’Reilly’s show remains about O’Reilly. My failing as an entertainment reporter is O’Reilly’s strength as an interviewer. The man has balls of steel and drew Bush out in a way nobody else that I saw came close to. It still came down to BUY THE BOOK! but there were some entertaining thrusts and parries along the way.

One talking-point on the current press tour sticks in my craw, though. Whenever Iraq comes up, he always includes a variation of “25 million people were liberated,” bla bla bla. Well, the nabobs who (almost) elected him in 2000 didn’t vote for him in order to bring freedom to countries around the world (they were actually specifically against nation-building), he was expected to put our country’s needs first. He wasn’t the President of Iraq, or the world, just the United States. By this idiotic reasoning, we have a duty to militarily free any country that is not run by democratically-elected representatives, anywhere in the world. We’re supposed to be like a country of Supermen, going about the world, spreading our vision of democracy (because it’s working so flawlessly here right now).

And then I remember why I always thought he was George W Bush was twenty gallons of cow-patty in a ten-gallon hat.

Still, I bought his tome for my Mom, who will love it to death. I inadvertently contributed money to this guy’s retirement fund and I’m not proud of it, but like Dumbleyou (ooh, I thought I’d never get to type that again!), I am a Mama’s Boy and I’ll eat a little cow-patty if that’s what it takes to make her happy.

So congratulations. This round, too, goes to you. May you sell a lot of books to innocent marks like my Mom and soon vanish again from my airwaves to the comfort of the obscurity you desire and have so richly earned.

(I’m sorry your dad is sick, though.)