There was a lesson for us in Bush’s Kubrick short, particularly for idiots with video-equipped cell phones. Stop recording everything you do — that’s the government’s job!

Traveling abroad, Bush held to form by failing to respond to the massive storm the video caused. He was in India, visiting hundreds of thousands of former American jobs. Bush brought out so many Indian protesters that no one in the United States could get tech support all day. He later went on to trade nuclear technology for pomegranates or kumquats or some other kind of fruit I’ve never tried.

War for sale
Since returning from abroad, Bush has focused on repackaging and re-selling his war, which is no longer supported by 65 percent of the American people. This figure even includes 15 percent of Democrats holding public office. It’s nice to know we still have a few leaders who can do simple math and apply it to a two-party system.

Anyway, the prez has been out at fake events taking fake questions about his real war. He has assured us that Iraq has not deteriorated into a civil war. In fact, his ground commanders at Fort Sumter, Baghdad, pooh-pooh any such suggestion.

He is also reminding us that Saddam Hussein is a bad guy. Which I suppose is why he now says American troops will be in Iraq until at least 2009: at its present rate, Saddam’s trial should easily last until then. As the heir to all this, the next president will not put his or her hand on the Bible during the inauguration, but will simply be handed a symbolic bag to hold during the proceedings.

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As part of Bush’s renewed war effort, he even held a press conference and took a question from a journalist old enough to remember the days when our leaders were held accountable to the American people, often through the good work of journalists. And so for the first time in more than three years, the most recognizable member of the White House press corps was recognized to ask a question. Helen Thomas didn’t tarry: she immediately grilled Bush to disclose the real reason for the Iraq war, seeing that all of the reasons he had furnished so far had been demonstrated to be unadulterated bunkum.

Fortunately, the fact that he called on Helen became the story, rather than the inane, rambling, useless jabbering he offered in response to the question, which bottomed out when he explained, “But we realized on September the 11th, 2001, that killers could destroy innocent life.”

With all due respect to his exulted numbness, September 11 did shake things up quite a bit, but the concept of killers destroying innocent life has been an accepted theory since even before his intelligence chief John Negroponte used it as part of Reagan-Bushdad’s vaunted Death Squad Diplomacy in the 1980s. And it’s a concept that is not unfamiliar to the Iraqi people. Except in their version, W plays the killer.

Bush’s emboldened approach to the media doesn’t just involve press conferences. It also encompasses scapegoating reporters for not telling any of the “good stories” from Iraq. Get that pile of corpses out of the frame — I want a shot of the puppy!

You know who really pushes good news from Iraq? American soldiers. Because they want to spare their families the grim truth. So they send e-mails and make small talk on the phone that paints a positive picture for their loved ones.

Bush uses families of soldiers — people with a vested interest in believing the best possible story — as patsies at his events. They rise and testify, “My son is in Iraq and he says things are going fine over there.” But anyone who has known war or warriors knows that loved ones inevitably receive reassurances from their soldier sons and daughters no matter how dire the circumstances. Dear Mom, They are treating us well here at Andersonville . . .

There may be more such encouraging mail. According to British media reports, Bush and Tony Blair have all but signed off on an attack on Iran. Considering their abject failure in Iraq, this agreement is so tasteless it should be commemorated as the Carnaby Street Memo.

A shameless ploy
Bush has finally answered calls for fresh blood at the White House (always a dangerous gambit when Cheney’s around) by replacing his chief of staff Andrew Card (who lives on in infamy for his inability to truncate the reading of the aforementioned My Pet Goat saga) with his director of management and budget, Joshua Bolten, the political equivalent of rotating blown-out tires on a totaled car. The American people don’t want a new chief of staff; they want a new chief of state. Now calls for press secretary Scott McClellan’s job are circulating. Kill the messenger.