The Bifurcated President:

Yesterday's speech to the Republican Jewish Coalition (motto: "Yep, we're the Israel-lovin' moneylenders you've heard so much about") by President Bush was one of those frightening exercises in logical leaps the likes of which generally take place only after one has discovered oneself wearing another person's pants after awaking from an acid dream involving pixies, a Sousaphone, and the gibbering skull of Rimbaud.

First, there was the introduction of Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, who, Bush said, "was looking for a meal -- he told me that on the plane yesterday." Oh, ho, oh, ho, you get it? See, part of his state was smashed into toothpicks by Hurricane Katrina, with starving citizens living in shelters, and Barbour was honoring them by eating Glatt chicken with his party's Hebraic faithful. One might think Barbour'd be busy helping his state figure out how to rebuild, say, a half-dozen gutted, flattened towns. But not when Bush needs a Katrina prop and there's no poor Negroes to fly in for the event.

Then, in praising the "strength" of the nation, Bush said that people have been moved to action; "I'm not talking about just government, I'm talking about the whole country," because, if he was talking about just government, well, shit, he'd be lying. Then there was this line, one that he's been repeating on a loop: "[W]e're going to stay as long as it takes," which begs the question: what other fuckin choice do we have? Cut Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama off and send them out into the wild Gulf of Mexico to become sovereign islands? Is the federal government's abandonment those states even an option? Bush assured, "There's a federal role to play, and we'll play it," because, you know, if there's a federal role, it'd be pretty fuckin' silly if, say, the crazy homeless guy on the corner played it. But don't worry about that federal role, because "We'll make sure your money is spent wisely." At that point, economists around the nation curled into a ball, shitting themselves, and muttering, "So cold, so very cold, please give me soup."

After going through his same blah, blah, blah list of shit he thinks will do some good for the poor and ruined of the Gulf Coast, Bush made this incredible, lemur-like, crazy-legged jump from one jungle tree to the next: "You know, something we -- I've been thinking a lot about how America has responded, and it's clear to me that Americans value human life, and value every person as important. And that stands in stark contrast, by the way, to the terrorists we have to deal with. You see, we look at the destruction caused by Katrina, and our hearts break. They're the kind of people who look at Katrina and wish they had caused it." Although one might argue that perhaps one of their butterflies flapped its terrorist wings and started the air moving that would cause Katrina, what the fuck?

Well, if you have to ask a stupid question, motherfucker, you get a stupid answer: "We're in a war against these people. It's a war on terror." Which made more than one robo-grinnin' circumcised Republican there do a double take that'd make a Catskills stand-up comic proud. Bush continued: "These are evil men who target the suffering. They killed 3,000 people on September the 11th, 2001." So, like, he's saying that the Goldman Sachs people in the World Trade Center were suffering. Or maybe, because we're all sinners, we're all suffering, and thus we're targeted because of our sinning suffering. Or maybe words just pop into his head that must be spoken or they'll eat his brain.

Blathering on without anyone there to stop him, Bush said, "And they've continued to kill. See, sometimes we forget about the evil deeds of these people." And then the President reminded us of what we might have forgotten: "They've killed in Madrid, and Istanbul, and Baghdad, and Bali, and London, and Sharm el-Sheikh, and Jerusalem, and Tel Aviv. Around the world they continue to kill." But never fear, "We're also going to defeat the enemy because they have no vision for the future that's positive." Unlike American evangelicals, who have a vision for the future that involves the torture and incineration of most of the people left behind after God takes all the Jesus-lovers away.

George W. Bush is a glass half-full kind of President: every tragedy of immense and horrific proportions is actually an opportunity, a chance to turn that frown upside down: "[T]he attacks of September the 11th really causes us to be more determined than ever to defend our way of life. And it also gave us an opportunity to advance the cause of freedom that were previously unthinkable," which, if you think about it, is not only grammatically incomprehensible, but means that he's admitting that 9/11 was just an excuse to go to war elsewhere.

Then, promising to open the change purse again, Bush said, "And out of the horror of Katrina is going to come a rebirth for parts of our country that -- that will mean people down there will be able to live with greater hope and prosperity -- the hope of prosperity -- than ever before." Solving problems before they become problems - that's the Bush administration's way, except when it isn't.

Yep, the glass is always half-full, just a chance to do good where no good could be done. Or, as we're learning now, if the glass is half-full, it's just an excuse for George W. Bush to finish that drink in one swallow.