Remember George W. Bush?

I know… Although it seemed like his presidency (and I’m using that word loosely) would never end, it is finally in the past. Can you imagine him holding up under the constant pressure that Barack Obama has had to face? And none of Barack Obama’s problems are self-inflicted. They are left-over problems from the Bush era of Wild West deregulation of everything and trying to fatten up friends and corporate donors with taxpayer money.

Remember that 1.3 Trillion-dollar (with a capital “T”, because a trillion of anything needs to be noticed) tax cut for the rich? It wasn’t paid for, and it was passed by reconciliation. Oops! I’m not supposed to say the “R” word. It’s evil when the Republicans are not in the majority. The 1.3 Trillion-dollar tax cut was not brought about by cutting any programs or reducing pork or unnecessary spending. It just simply ballooned the deficit by the same 1.3 Trillion dollars.

Where were all of the deficit hawks among the Republicans then? We saw zero Republicans crying “crocodile tears” over their grandchildren being saddled with debt when it was the rich getting all of the taxpayers’ money.

BTW, the CBO came out with the numbers on health care reform today. It will cut the deficit by $130 billion in the first ten years (2010 – 2019), and cut the deficit by $1.2 trillion in the second ten years. Wow – that has to really cut into the GOP’s talking points. Wait – no it won’t. They ignore facts, and their minions are not interested in facts. They just want apocalyptic rhetoric, where everything is a crisis of Biblical proportions, (but only when a Democrat is President).

So, it will make no difference, and Fox News will continue citing the New England Journal reports without anyone looking to see if the New England Journal of Medicine actually reported that.  (Isn’t that what interns are for?) Apparently, if you have a cable news network, Moynihan was wrong, you can have your own set of facts.

Remember the title of this post? Well, I’m getting there. George W. Bush has been as busy bringing about world peace as O.J. has been “looking for the real killer”. Here’s an eyewitness account from Dallas, in the area of Preston Hollow:

Every weekday at noon inside a North Dallas shopping mall, the 43^rd president of the United States of America sits down at his usual table in the food court and settles in for lunch with a jumbo Mello Yello, two plates of magic fries and a grande chimichanga. “When he first starting showin’ up at the mall, people would always come over and ask for his autograph or whatever,” said Daryl Vanderveen, a 19-year-old cashier at Sbarro Pizza. “But now that he’s here so much nobody even looks up from their lunch.”

Sources interviewed for this article said that Mr. Bush spends at least eight hours of each day at the Preston Hollow Shopping Center, a popular retail destination near his home in suburban Dallas. “Other than that chimichanga lunch he doesn’t really have a set routine,” said one source. “Sometimes he’ll hang around Lenscrafters trying on glasses or head over to Abercrombie & Fitch and watch the girls fold pants. Last week I saw him inside Pottery Barn sleeping in a leather recliner.”

But some mall employees are beginning to complain about the former president. “The other day I was taking a smoke break near the fountain and he just kept asking me stupid stuff like, ‘guess how fast I could get a hot dog in the White House,’” said Amber Kaul, who works part-time at the T-Mobile kiosk. “So finally I’m like ‘I dunno, ten minutes?’ And he’s all like ‘more like two minutes’ and then he snaps his fingers and gives me this cocky look like I’m supposed to care.”

Donna Simpson, a barista at the mall Starbucks, said the former president is often a distraction from her work. “He sits down over there with his laptop and supposedly starts working on his book,” said Ms. Simpson. “But after about five minutes he comes over, takes a seat at the counter and starts telling how there’s milk duds on Air Force One or Dick Cheney has a glass eye. I’m like ‘dude, there’s about fifty people in line right now, go write your book’.”

Nestor Martinez, a 20-year-old mall security guard, confirmed that on at least two occasions he’s had to speak to the former president about his behavior. “We started getting complaints that he was hanging out in the men’s room asking guys if they wanted to have their picture taken with him,” said Mr. Martinez. “When I told him to stop he said, ‘let’s go sort it out over a game of Donkey Kong.’ So after my shift we went over to the arcade and I beat him in a best of three. Then he got all pissed off and said he’d take up the bathroom thing with my boss.”

Two sources have confirmed that former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was recently enlisted by friends and former aides to speak to Mr. Bush about the situation. “She asked him point blank if it was true that he’d spent an entire afternoon doing nothing but riding up and down the escalators,” said the source. “The president got really angry with Condi and refused to give her a straight answer.”

When the president left office six months ago, it was announced that in addition to writing a book detailing the key decision points of his presidency, he would dedicate himself to promoting democracy throughout the world. Many friends and former advisors close to Mr. Bush admit privately that he has not made progress on either the book or his democracy agenda. “He told me he was going to open up some kind of ‘freedom institute’,” said a prominent G.O.P. fundraiser. “I’m not sure how you promote democracy by camping out in front of a shopping mall arcade challenging strangers to games of Ms. Pac Man.”

In response to questions about the president’s schedule, a spokesman released the following statement. “The president continues to work towards advancing freedom around the world and is busy with his book.”

Nice reporting.  I’d like to say this came directly from the New England Journal of Medicine, but it was actually, K.M. Breay at Open Salon.

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