As Michelle and I sat down to breakfast this morning, our appetites were ruined by the unpleasant surprise of Dubyah showing up on TV and giving a speech. Does he really have to do that so early in the morning? I believe people deserve to digest before being induced to vomit by listening to the Presitard talk about things he doesn’t understand. Since I instinctively turn to drink at the sound of his voice, I would like to see these speeches presented in the evenings. Now that I think of it, though, I suppose I could keep a bottle of prosecco on hand and have a mimosa. That’s called “being flexible”.

Getting back to the speech, I suppose the benefit of not drinking is that I can remember the stupid things he said. Today’s speech started out with a few nice words about the departed Lady Bird Johnson.

Yesterday America lost an extraordinary first lady and a fine Texan, Lady Bird Johnson. She brought grace to the White House and beauty to our country. On behalf of the American people, Laura and I send our condolences to her daughters, Lynda and Luci, and we offer our prayers to the Johnson family.

On the surface, it sounds pretty good. His delivery has really improved these past few years, hasn’t it? It looks like those remedial high school speech classes he took recently have really helped out. You remember: glance at your notes, read a few lines, then make sure you finish your thought while looking at your audience. Because that shows that you’re not reading the entire speech from your note cards. Did anyone notice, though, that he looked up while saying “an extraordinary first lady and fine Texan” and had to look at his notes to remember her name? Kinda takes a little “something” away from the heartfelt message, don’t you think?

Personally, my favorite part of the speech was when he condescendingly sympathized with our frustrations of being tied up in a war that we started preemptively over falsified reasons.

First of all, I understand why the American people are — you know, they’re tired of the war. People are — there’s war fatigue in America. It’s affecting our psychology. I’ve said this before. I understand that. This is an ugly war. It’s a war in which an enemy will kill innocent men, women and children in order to achieve a political objective. It doesn’t surprise me that there is deep concern amongst our people.

I’m going to ignore the grammatical genius in his phrasing because I don’t want to bite off more than I can chew. I’m also going to ignore the fact that he still doesn’t get that America is a continent, and that our country is the United States of America and that there are other countries here. Countries that don’t start wars for no reason. Instead, I’m going to focus on his recognition that this is an ugly war. Just this particular war is ugly, right? Because most wars are beautiful. Poets write about “beautiful” wars all the time: singing, dancing, and picnics by the light of napalm. I’m also confused about whether he’s talking about us or them when he says, “it’s a war in which an enemy will kill innocent men, women and children in order to achieve a political objective.”

All that aside, I appreciate that he made a karate-chopping motion towards his head at the mention of the word “psychology”. His satisfied smile after the gesture shows his confidence that psychology affects the mind. He feels good about having clarified the matter for those of us listening who might have been confused.

All this leaves me wishing the real Bush was more like the Farrell Bush.