[font class="headline"][font color="#003366"]
Oilman Bush has gas in background[/font] [font class="bodyDate"]By
[a href="mailto:[email protected]"]Margery Eagan[/a]Boston Herald Columnist
[table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"][tbody][tr][td height="2"][spacer type="block" height="2" width="1"][/td][/tr][/tbody][/table][/font] [font class="bodyDate"]Thursday, August 24, 2006 - Updated: [font color="#990000"]02:19 AM EST[/font]
[/font] [font class="bodyFont"][font class="headline"]
M[/font]aybe if Iraq were going better, I'd chalk this up to some cowboy thing."Blazing Saddles Does D.C."
[table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"][tbody][tr][td height="8"][spacer type="block" height="8" width="8"][/td][/tr][/tbody][/table] As it is, I worry that the supposed leader of the free world is trapped in the body of a 7-year-old and hiding a Whoopie Cushion under his bed.
[table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"][tbody][tr][td height="8"][spacer type="block" height="8" width="8"][/td][/tr][/tbody][/table] Has Dubya lost it?
[table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"][tbody][tr][td height="8"][spacer type="block" height="8" width="8"][/td][/tr][/tbody][/table] Anyway, here's the news, such as it is. U.S. New & World Reports' Paul Bedard says our commander in chief "loves flatulence jokes . . . can't get enough of fart jokes. He's also known to cut a few for laughs, especially when greeting new young aides."
[table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"][tbody][tr][td height="8"][spacer type="block" height="8" width="8"][/td][/tr][/tbody][/table] In an interview yesterday, Bedard, who writes "Washington Whispers" for the weekly newsmagazine, also said he's heard about Bush's full-salute "Austin Greeting." That's when new aides come in for their "meet and greet."
[table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"][tbody][tr][td height="8"][spacer type="block" height="8" width="8"][/td][/tr][/tbody][/table] "Word is," says Bedard, "he likes to gas a couple, and then bring the aide in and see what the kid's face looks like."
[table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"][tbody][tr][td height="8"][spacer type="block" height="8" width="8"][/td][/tr][/tbody][/table] Naturally, the aide can't accuse the President or grimace or hold his nose. This dilemma apparently drives the presidential funny bone wild.
[table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"][tbody][tr][td height="8"][spacer type="block" height="8" width="8"][/td][/tr][/tbody][/table] So does this mean our president farts on command?
[table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"][tbody][tr][td height="8"][spacer type="block" height="8" width="8"][/td][/tr][/tbody][/table] "It's all in what you eat, I guess . . . beans, nachos," Bedard told me yesterday.
[table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"][tbody][tr][td height="8"][spacer type="block" height="8" width="8"][/td][/tr][/tbody][/table] Does he do this with Cheney, Rummy and Rove?
[table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"][tbody][tr][td height="8"][spacer type="block" height="8" width="8"][/td][/tr][/tbody][/table] "You mean the old farts?" says Bedard. "I like to think so."
[table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"][tbody][tr][td height="8"][spacer type="block" height="8" width="8"][/td][/tr][/tbody][/table] OK, almost no one I talked to yesterday shared my reaction to all this, which is, gross, gross, gross. Can you even envision [a class="under" href="vny!://news.bostonherald.com/search/?searchSite=true&keyword=Mitt+Romney&mode=all&sorting=pubdate"]
Mitt Romney[/a]? John Kerry? Te-ray-za?
[table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"][tbody][tr][td height="8"][spacer type="block" height="8" width="8"][/td][/tr][/tbody][/table] Imagine the scene with Bush. Some nervous, excited and unsuspecting 25-year-old - male, let's hope - is about to shake hands with the most powerful man on earth, and then, well, George makes his own unique contribution to global warming.
[table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"][tbody][tr][td height="8"][spacer type="block" height="8" width="8"][/td][/tr][/tbody][/table] As for the scene with Cheney et. al? Oh, banish it from the brain!
[table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"][tbody][tr][td height="8"][spacer type="block" height="8" width="8"][/td][/tr][/tbody][/table] Yet most everybody else said this reveals George as a regular guy.
[table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"][tbody][tr][td height="8"][spacer type="block" height="8" width="8"][/td][/tr][/tbody][/table] Then they made jokes. "Dyslexia rears its ugly head," said Becky Swope. "He's not a frat boy!"
[table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"][tbody][tr][td height="8"][spacer type="block" height="8" width="8"][/td][/tr][/tbody][/table] "He's just ringing the Taco Bell!" said Jeff, who owns a pet store in Salem and didn't want his last name used, for obvious reasons.
[table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"][tbody][tr][td height="8"][spacer type="block" height="8" width="8"][/td][/tr][/tbody][/table] We'll protect, too, my sober, downtown law firm friend Stephen, lest he get fired: "As a new young intern in the White House, which would you rather have the president say, 'Pull my finger,' or 'Have a cigar?' "
[table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"][tbody][tr][td height="8"][spacer type="block" height="8" width="8"][/td][/tr][/tbody][/table] That's my point. Gross.
[table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"][tbody][tr][td height="8"][spacer type="block" height="8" width="8"][/td][/tr][/tbody][/table] So too the bodily habits of previous presidents, most notably Lyndon Johnson, who scratched his crotch at Cabinet meetings, held other meetings while sitting on the toilet and pulled up his shirt to display an ample stomach surgery scar.
[table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"][tbody][tr][td height="8"][spacer type="block" height="8" width="8"][/td][/tr][/tbody][/table] I did not know this until yesterday. (I wish I still didn't know it.) Harry Truman publicly belched and passed gas. Bess, how could you allow it!
[table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"][tbody][tr][td height="8"][spacer type="block" height="8" width="8"][/td][/tr][/tbody][/table] But when you add up all Dubya's shenanigans, he's already beaten his predecessors by a Texas mile. Just last month he sneak-attacked German chancellor Angela Merkel, delivering an unwanted neck and back rub in the midst of the staid Group of Eight Summit.
[/font][/font][font class="headline"][font class="bodyFont"]Every time he's close to bald-head strangers, he starts rubbing their head. What's that about? He's big into "noogies" as well.
[table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"][tbody][tr][td height="8"][spacer type="block" height="8" width="8"][/td][/tr][/tbody][/table] Maybe this is a gender thing. Several men, but no women, told me they remember sitting around with buddies having loudest bodily function contests when they were young. The key word there, however, is "young."
[table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"][tbody][tr][td height="8"][spacer type="block" height="8" width="8"][/td][/tr][/tbody][/table] But this latest leak from the Bush White House does explain a lot, doesn't it? All those furrowed brows and deer-in-the-headlights pauses in his speeches and press conferences. And that devilish litle laugh.
[table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"][tbody][tr][td height="8"][spacer type="block" height="8" width="8"][/td][/tr][/tbody][/table] Now we know: something else could be going on there. I'll never look at George again without wondering.[/font][/font]
[a href="vny!://news.bostonherald.com/columnists/view.bg?articleid=154220&format=&page=1"]vny!://news.bostonherald.com/columnists/view.bg?articleid=154220&format=&page=1[/a]
