And the resulting spectacle managed even to cleanly limbo right beneath my rock bottom expectations. I mean, to say George W. Bush is a clueless jackass of epic proportions is to say water is wet, and to say that Jay Leno is an awkward, ham-fisted sycophant who couldn't make a conversation look effortless if the life of his best denim jumpsuit depended on it is to say snow is cold, but OMFG THIS WATER IS SO WET AND THIS SNOW IS SO COLD.
This was the garbage nightmare interview to end all garbage nightmare interviews, the inexplicable arrogance of its two roundly hated participants rivaled in breathtaking scope only by the unmitigated fuckery of the bullshit falling out of Bush's mouth.
If the objective of this media tour is to secure Bush's legacy among his dildobrained admirers as the Removed Elite Teetotaler You'd Most Want to Have a Beer With, and sell a few of his garbage books in the process, then thumbs-up, I guess.
If, however, the objective was to more deeply entrench Bush's reputation as a flippant dingaling with a nasty mean streak who's never lost a moment's sleep over the international, domestic, political, social, and economic clusterfucktastrophes for which his administration is responsible, and to make sure the words "Leno" and "credibility" never end up again in the same sentence, then Mondo Fucko and Mondo Dorko can grab their codpieces and go stand in front of a Mission Accomplished banner on an aircraft carrier, bitchez, 'cuz that shit is solid.
All jokes aside, when I write about how the Republicans are able to trade on "the gossamer promise of a return to a time that never happened in a country that never really existed," because this country reimagines its own history to make it something less horrible than it was, this it how it happens. This interview, in all seriousness, this little slice of pop culture fluff, is how begins the erasure of the authentic legacy of the Bush years, how we collectively start to willfully forget the history we are thus doomed to repeat.
Full transcripts (with some inserted commentary, ahem) for all three segments are below the fold (on most browsers). Yes, I've spent the entire morning staring at and listening to video of George W. Bush and Jay Leno. Donation button to the right.
Segment One
Leno: Please welcome the thirty-third—the forty-third president, George W. Bush.
["Hail to the Chief" plays as Bush walks out. They shake hands and sort of half-hug; Bush kisses Leno on the cheek. Bush sits down grins in his usual glib way, and the crowd goes wild.]
Leno: Now, the, uh—
[The crowd continues to cheer over Leno trying to start theinterviewknob-buffing; Bush motions for them to settle down.]
Bush: They're getting a little carried away.
Leno: See that? The last time you were here, it was 2000. It was ten years ago!
Bush: That's right, yeah.
Leno: And the last ten years—thank you for all the material.
Bush: [throws back his head and laughs] That's why I haven't been back in ten years!
Leno: That's why people don't usually come back! [Bush laughs] Does any of that bother you, when you see the jokes, or the skits…?
Bush: You know, I hate to tell ya, um, I don't wanna hurt your feelings, but…I was asleep.
[audience laughter and applause]
Leno: Oh, really, well. At least I didn't put to you sleep!
Bush: Yeah, that's right! Heh heh heh.
Leno: Now, something I admire you greatly for—you have not commented on any of our current president's problems, or anything, and, uh, tell us why.
Bush: Because I don't think it's good for the country to have a former president criticizing his successor. [Said with this attitude like he's the first president to be so honorable, despite the fact that has always been US tradition, and despite the fact his former veep, Dick Cheney, has been on a Grumbling Tour of Inappropriate Criticism for the last two years.]
[audience cheers and applause; Leno applauds]
Leno: But, if I could get you to comment on one thing… President Obama was in India recently, and here he is dancing. Take a look. [Bush chuckles as it cuts to video of Obama dancing in India, then cuts back to the interview] Now—
Bush: Yeah.
Leno: —you danced as president. [pause; Bush laughs] If we could just take a look a look at that for a minute. [Cut to video of Bush dancing and beating on a drum like a goddamn fool on Malaria Awareness Day, 2007, still photos of which are here. The audience goes wild; Bush laughs uproariously.] Now, as modest as you can be—
Bush: Yes, thank you.
Leno: —in your unbiased opinion, who do you think is the better dancer?
Bush: President Obama, yeah. Heh heh heh heh heh heh. [Leno laughs] I did that, and my girl called me—one of my girls called me and she said, "No wonder you're not dancing on the stars." [Nice joke, Botchy Hackerton. The audience nonetheless laughs. As does Leno.]
Leno: Now, when that—when a situation like that happens, obviously you're having fun, but do you say to yourself, "I'm going to do this anyway, even though it's going to be on every TV show"?
Bush: This was a Malaria awareness, uh, event, and I created awareness for malaria. Heh heh heh.
[Audience laughs; Leno laughs]
Leno: Now, let me ask you about this other piece of videotape. And this is one of my all-time favorites, and I must say, you did this with such, such dignity. Take a look. [Cut to footage of Bush in China, trying to get out of a door that's locked, a still image of which is here. The audience laughs; Bush laughs.]
Bush: [still laughing] That was in China. That's the definition of a man without an exit strategy! Heh heh heh heh heh heh.
[OMFG!!! Shades of Bush cracking wise about looking for WMDs at the Correspondents' Dinner in '04. Naturally Leno and the audience think this is HIGHLARIOUS!]
Leno. Now, your book is called Decision Points. I read the whole book—boy, it's an easy read, and I must say, I really—I mean, I knew a lot of the other things—I especially liked the early part of your life—
Bush: Thanks.
Leno: —just as I did Laura, just learning about growing up and learning a lot about your background. What was your first decision? You have fourteen of 'em here [thumps book]—what was your first big one?
Bush: Well, the first decision to run for president [zuh?], but the first decision, uh, in the book [huh?] was…quitting drinking. And the opening sentence is: "Can you tell me a day in which you have not had a drink?" And that was my good wife, saying, "Just tell me one day," and, if you drink too much, like I was, the answer was, "Of course I can't!" And then I couldn't remember a day.
Leno: Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, I thought that was incredibly honest and candid. Now, did you think, "Okay, I'll go to AA, I'll—maybe I'll get treatment"? No, you just did—quit cold turkey?
Bush: Well, it was a combination of faith and, uh, family, and—but, yeah, I haven't had a drink since August of 1986. [applause]
Leno: Okay, so you quit when you were 40, okay.
Bush: Yeah.
Leno: Okay.
Segment Two
Leno: [holding up book] Now, what do you say your proudest accomplishment is in here?
Bush: Uh, protecting the homeland from an attack. [LITERALLY SAID WITHOUT A TRACE OF FUCKING IRONY OR SELF-AWARENESS. OMFG.]
[audience cheers and applause; Leno applauds; Bush and Leno nod sagely at each other]
Leno: Let's talk about that. About 9/11. [Note: Leno isn't cleverly playing a game of gotcha here, since 9/11 HAPPENED ON BUSH'S FUCKING WATCH. He literally is acting like 9/11 is somehow EVIDENCE OF BUSH'S PROTECTING US FROM AN ATTACK. The cognitive dissonance is unbelievable.] When did you first realize the magnitude of this…?
Bush: Well, I was in a classroom in Florida, and Andy Card, my chief of staff, said, "A second plane has hit the—a second tower. America is under attack," and then, shortly thereafter, I was—I started seeing images of the, of the building being, uh, you know, starting to crumble, and, um, on TV, when I left the classroom, and then I was in the limousine, hurtling down the Florida highway—Condi called and said that a plane has hit the Pentagon. And, um, I realized we were a nation at war. [nods gravely]
Leno: Now, you took some grief for that seven-minute period.
Bush: Yeah. [shrugs]
Leno: But you talk about that in the book. Tell us what you wrote—
Bush: Well, my thinking was, first I got the news, uh, I was angry. Then I looked at the childs—it was—the children who were sitting in front of me, and I realized my most important job was to protect them, and their families, and their country, and then I saw the press getting phone calls in the back, getting the same information I had just gotten; I'd been in enough crises as the governor of Texas—I knew, if you're the head of an organization, you should not create any sense of panic. In other words, if you're ever in a crisis, and people are counting on you, you gotta project calm. And so I left the classroom at the appropriate moment; I decided not to be disruptive, and not to take action that would scare the kids.
Leno: Well, I thought— [audience applauds; Leno nods in agreement and applauds] Yeah. Um, you had one moment when you went to Ground Zero, which I thought was just, uh, one of the great historical moments. Take a look; let's show it just for a minute.
[Cut to video of Bush standing at Ground Zero standing on rubble with megaphone, saying: "I can hear you, the rest of the world hears you, and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon." Cheers and applause as it cuts back to the interview.]
Leno: One of the, uh, one of the most touching things, I think, were all those workers just yelling, "Go get 'em, George!" They weren't even calling you Mr. President.
Bush: Yeah, I know. Well, they didn't know who I was. [Leno starts to laugh, then realizes Bush is being serious.] And, uh, they were really worried. Uh, they were worried the president wasn't going to bring justice—
Leno: Right.
Bush: —to the enemy that killed their friends. And, uh, and, uh, I, you know, I was determined to bring justice to those who attacked our country. And I worked that way for seven-and-a-half years.
[cheers and applause]
Leno: Why do you think we have not been able to, uh, to find Osama bin Laden? Why has this eluded us?
Bush: Yeah, you know—I—if, if, ifwe knew where he was, we would have him. [WE ARE DEFINITELY NOT KNOWING WHERE HE IS BUT LETTING HIM REMAIN FREE AS A BOOGEYMAN TO JUSTIFY OUTSIZED DEFENSE BUDGETS AND WAR PROFITEERING.]
Leno: Right, right.
Bush: He's hiding, and, and, in a very remote part of the world. I guess. [shrugs]
Leno: Yeah, yeah. So, what was your biggest disappointment?
Bush: Well, that—not bringing Osama to justice, of course, the weapons of mass destruction that everybody [NO NOT EVERYBODY, YOU LYING ASSHOLE] thought Saddam Hussein had—we never found 'em. Although I would remind people—and I do in this book—that he had the capacity to make weapons of mass destruction. [TOO BAD THAT WASN'T THE REASON WE WENT TO WAR.] And, uh, um, there was a lot of disappointments as president, and a lot of moments of, uh, joy. [GOD I HATE THIS FUCKER.]
Leno: Something you talk about—you mention in the book, and I've been watching you on all these shows, and no one—I'm surprised no one has brought it up, the fact that Saddam Hussein directly threatened your daughters.
Bush: That's right.
Leno: I mean, essentially, putting a hit out, I guess, if you will.
Leno: Yeah, the guy's a thug. [shrugs] And, uh, I believe the world is better off without him in power.
[cheers and applause; Leno applauds—he practically does a fucking slow-clap]
Leno: So, of these fourteen decisions, if you could change or redo any of them, are there any you would do differently, or change?
Bush: Well, the big decisions I'm comfortable, and, uh, with the decisions I made, I think the reader will find that I took a lot of time to make the decisions. There are some things I'd like to do over, I mean, obviously, but—
Leno: What would you do over?
Bush: [testy, but glib, at the same time] Well, I wouldn't be standing in front of a Mission Accomplished sign on an aircraft carrier. [audience laughs] I wouldn't fly over, uh, Katrina in an airplane [makes airplane motion with his hand] and have my picture released from, you know, 10,000 feet above the damage, conveying the sense I didn't care, when I cared deeply about our fellow citizens down there. Uh, probably would have [chuckles] been a little less blunt in some of my language.
Leno: Right, right. Okay.
Bush: Dead or alive, perhaps.
Leno: Dead or alive, okay. All right. Look, look, we'll take a break and find out a little bit more about life after the White House.
Segment Three
Leno: We're talking with president and author George W. Bush. So, life after the White House. Do you ever talk to President Obama, pick up the phone—?
Bush: [laughs] He actually called me to ask if I would join with President Clinton to work on the, uh, Haiti disaster.
Leno: So, are you and Clinton friends?
Bush: Yeah!
Leno: You guys hanging out?
Bush: We are, yeah. He spends so much time with my father, Mother calls him, uh, our step-brother. Heh heh heh.
Leno: Yeah, I did see that. I did see you guys hanging out a lot. [Photo of the two GBs and Clinton.]
Bush: Heh heh heh heh heh heh.
Leno: So, whaddaya think of this mid-term deal, the whole election, what's your take?
Bush: Uh, I think that I'm not gonna be a political pundit, but I appreciate the effort. Heh heh heh heh heh heh. [audience laughter]
Leno: Yeah. Have you met Sarah Palin?
Bush: I have.
Leno: Okay.
Bush: And I found her to be a, uh, a very kind and thoughtful person.
Leno: Right, right. You think she'll run?
Bush: [gives an exaggerated shrug and makes a funny face] Don't know! [Sarcastic, implying: "Of course she's going to run!"] My candidate is not going to run! My brother Jeb.
Leno: He's not? He's not going to run?
Bush: No. No.
Leno: No. No.
Bush: It's too bad; he's a good man.
Leno: Yeah, okay. Maybe somewhere down the road?
Bush: I hope so. Better to ask him, though.
Leno: Yeah, okay. Okay, all right, we'll do that. [OMFG THIS IS SO BORING.] We'll ask him.
Bush: [laughs] Yeah.
Leno: Now, Thanksgiving coming up. I want to ask you about Thanksgiving ways—do you remember this picture? This is one of my favorites. [Shows picture of Bush looking like a dingus while a turkey pokes at his groin area.]
Bush: Heh! Heh! Heh! Heh! Heh! Heh! Heh! Heh! Heh! Heh! Heh! Heh!
Leno: That's uh—What was happening there?
Bush: Well, we were getting ready to pardon the old turkey!
Leno: Yeah. Well, I'm not sure I'd pardon him after that.
Bush: Exactly! Heh heh heh heh heh heh! Heh! Heh! Heh! Heh! Heh! Heh! Heh! Heh! Heh! Heh! Heh! Heh!
Leno: Now, you talk about an incident with Barney. Tell that story.
Bush: Well, what happened was, I'm getting briefed by, uh, I think the FBI at the time, and I hear this HUGE kerfuffle out in the Rose Garden [Leno laughs], and Barney, uh, the Scottish terrier, is after the turkey. [audience laughs] And, uh, we had to send a lot of people out to save the turkey. I was able to pardon him, but Barney—
[picture of turkey being rescued from dog by men in suits and Bush looking the fool, as usual]
Leno: Yeah, there you go—I love the look on your face, jus look, yeah, the most important people in the world now chasing a turkey and a dog.
Bush: Yeah! Yeah, Barney nearly killed the thing! Heh heh heh!
Leno: Now, um, where you going to be spending Thanksgiving? You going to be in Texas?
Bush: In Crawford. Yeah, our girls will be there, and my son-in-law, and, uh, I wish he'd hurry up and have a grandchild.
Leno: Yeah! When are you going to be a grandfather?!
Bush: Yeah, good question. If you're listening, Henry. [looks into camera] Even Jay Leno wants to know!
Leno: How old is Henry?
Bush: Uh, he's old enough! Heh heh heh heh heh heh.
[Note: These clips edited out Bush telling—again!—his drunken how's-sex-over-50 story.]
Leno: You might ask him what sex is like in your 30s.
Bush: HEH! HEH! HEH! HEH! HEH! HEH! HEH! HEH! HEH! HEH! HEH! HEH! I quit drinking! Heh heh heh!
Leno: And Laura—she happy to be home?
Bush: She's great. She's doing well. She's an awesome person. One time I said, "Laura Bush is the greatest first lady ever!" [thumps fist on thigh for emphasis] and then realized Mother was in the audience. Heh heh heh!
Leno: Oh that's right! THAT'S RIGHT! I never thought about that!
Bush: Yeah.
Leno: But you seem happy, you seem relaxed.
Bush: [nods] I'm a happy guy. I loved serving our country, I gave it my all, and I'm glad to be home. [SPOKEN LIKE SOME ASSHOLE WHO AVOIDED ACTUAL MILITARY SERVICE.]
[applause]
Leno: Now does she—do you have—like, when you go home, do you now have to do the married guy stuff? [in completely offensive woman-mocking voice] Do you have to go antiquing?
Bush: [laughing] Yeah, so I'm lying on the couch, I said, "Free at last, baby!" [BECAUSE HE WAS TOTALLY A SLAVE.] And she said, "Now you're free to do the dishes."
Leno: That's right. There you go. That's right. And I saw you were a greeter at Wal-Mart…?
Bush: Yeah, not at Wal-Mart, at, uh, a drugstore there in, in Elliott's Drugstore, they put a full-page ad that said "we need a greeter," so I go—guy walks up to me and says, "Anybody ever tell you ya look like George W. Bush?" [laughter] I said, "Yeah, it happens all the time." [laughter] And guy under his breath goes, "Sure must make ya mad!" [laughter and applause]
Leno: Mr. President, have a happy Thanksgiving! [They shake hands.] God bless you, sir, thank you, and your family. Have a lovely holiday. [cheers and applause] President George W. Bush!
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