Kicking off the third annual National Book Festival last week, First Lady Laura Bush revealed that her husband had penned a poem for her while she was on a five-day solo trip to Europe. She read the poem to the crowd as the President watched:
Roses are red / Violets are blue / Oh my, lump in the bed / How I’ve missed you.
Roses are redder / Bluer am I / Seeing you kissed by that charming French guy.
The dogs and the cat, they missed you too / Barney’s still mad you dropped him, he ate your shoe.
The distance, my dear, has been such a barrier / Next time you want an adventure, just land on a carrier.
The less cynical may view this as a slice-of-life, light-hearted, even romantic (despite the lump in the bed reference) interaction between a woman and her husband, who somehow happens to be the President of the United States.
When it comes to spin, however, the Bush administration should never be misunderestimated. Nothing in this Brave New War is ever done without an ulterior purpose and Dubya’s poem may be a trial balloon to see if poetic treacle can get back some of his fading poll points. If it works, expect a lot more of it. In fact, we’ve uncovered a secret cache of future Presidential poems planned for release by the White House. Here’s just three examples:
There once was a despot from Baghdad
Who’s tyranny made his people so sad
So we invaded and crushed him
But Weapons of Destruction
Were nowhere to be found: “Oops, my bad!”
Leak in the Whitehouse, Drip drip drip
CIA is mad, Pissed pissed pissed
Valerie Plame uncovered, Tsk tsk tsk
We’re all about integrity, Fist, fist, fist.
Yellowcake, Yellowcake, Dubya’s scam,
Buy some uranium from an African,
Spin it, lie about it, and mark it with a “B,”
Then put it in the State of the Union for Congress to see!
Who knows, this might spark a new trend in politics. And with our own Novello festival kicking off and Mayor Pat McCrory recently being named to the Homeland Security Advisory Council, how long until we begin to hear, “There once was a frat boy from Charlotte . . .”
This article appears in Oct 8-14, 2003.
