Given seven years of Bush press conferences, one could easily expect that anyone who willingly watched Thursday’s latest was a participant in one of those cruel experiments that seem to be so fashionable in alien abductions these days. I caught most of Mr. Bush’s insult fest, and I’ll admit that that it gave my neck quite a workout, what with me constantly on the lookout for Martians behind Mr. Bush. It’s silly, of course, but the administration does seem to be crawling with them, doesn’t it? And just think of how much it would explain.

Readers smart enough to be Doing Better Things With Their Time — running outside, perhaps, on hearing “Good Morning, Mr. President,” and taking up smoking again — but who obviously, and thankfully, are not above visiting this site, can find unbiased truth about it here — and at a safe distance.

Yes, there are still those of us who will watch these spectacles, even if only out of perverse and morbid curiosity. We watch the Republican debates and hope for a serious answer. We watch for Mike Gravel to catch fire (I mean real fire, right on stage), and for Dennis Kucinich to finally, at long last, have it up to here with all the crap and give some self-important “debate” “moderator” — note the quotes — a good old Ohio flip-off. What’s he got to lose at this point, really? He only gets about 15 seconds to speak in each “debate” anyway, and wouldn’t such an act wonderfully clarify for folks how out of whack all the other Democratic candidates’ crap limits are? This wouldn’t happen on the other side.

The president’s answers to most questions are, basically, all tedious variations on “no.” George Bush is Jesse Helms without the laugh track and intellect. And this latest media event shows that even after seven long, tedious years, he still cannot drop a bit of the fake folksiness and the pretense that helped him delude a gullible public into putting him into office twice. (Well, once, actually. The first time was technically, for future historians, a coup, and the jury is still out on the second one, especially in Ohio.) And his answers in this nasty, evasive and manipulative press conference just reconfirmed that he learns nothing.

There is, thankfully, at least one item on the plus side. He continues to make deposits to our National Satire Reserve, which we hope will continue doing what it has done for seven years now — turn countless, straying comedians into regular churchgoers again. When God treats you like this, what else can you do?

And the press conference was a welcome tonic to the severe humor deficit attendant to the Hollywood writers’ strike. It was a trove of misdeception, degrammarizing and — put that dictionary down — blatant oblivication. Here, calorie-free, a highly selective Whitman Sampler of sweet nothings from George himself, with comment in parentheses. Read him carefully….

“I think recent days have been a moment that the country can be proud of.”
— (Thinking? A fundamental policy shift so late in his second term? How we all wish the past seven years could be reduced to a moment. Why not? Recent days have been, or so he says.)

“In the past few days we have stopped a tax increase on the middle-class families, we improved our energy security, we delivered relief to struggling homeowners, and we funded our troops.”
— (If you really believe Congress did a really good job, sir, then your “Mission Accomplished” flightsuit should have unzipped from the rear.)

Mr. Bush, on, I believe, the inaptly named “Protect America Act”:
“The bill should include liability protection for companies that are facing multibillion-dollar lawsuits, only because they are believed to have assisted in the efforts to defend or nation following the 9/11 attacks. And it must ensure that our intelligence professionals have all the tools they need to keep us safe.”
— (The companies committed criminal acts, which their staff attorneys must surely have made clear. And when did the suspension of a clause of the constitution become a “tool”? Answer: 2002. How is corporate retroactive immunity for abetting the subversion of the constitution a “tool”? Answer: Thursday. When did laws become obstacles to our “freedoms”? Answer: It depends on whose freedom.)

“That’s my hopes.”
— (That’s our hopes, too, sir.)

“The President constantly has to make sure that the executive branch is involved in the process, and one way is to — is to use the veto. And the veto wouldn’t have been effective without close coordination and consultation with Republican leaders in the House and the Senate. And in that we made the veto effective, it then meant that negotiations could proceed, with the President involved.”
— (No belly laugh misspeak, no fact gaffe. Just a sobering look at the small, crippled view of our government and national life and political discourse this man labors under, as he struggles to fill President Coolidge’s big shoes.)

QUESTION: “Thank you, Mr. President. Yesterday you joined together with House Speaker Pelosi and Senator Reid to sign the energy legislation and talk about the importance of the bill in curbing greenhouse gases, among other goals. However, your administration then told California that it couldn’t implement its own plan to restrict tailpipe emissions. How important is fighting greenhouse gases to you? Why can’t the states try to do more? And can you tell me anything about your conversation with Vice President Gore about climate change a few weeks ago?”

THE PRESIDENT ANSWERS: “Remind me about that here. Let me finish the first part of the question and remind me you asked that.”
— (Did you catch what happened? The presentation of three questions — back to back!!! — completely flummoxed Mr. Bush.)

“The question is how to have an effective strategy. Is it more effective to let each state make a decision as to how to proceed in curbing greenhouse gases? Or is it more effective to have a national strategy? Director Johnson made a decision based upon the fact that we passed a piece of legislation that enables us to have a national strategy, which is the — increasing CAFE standards to 35 miles an hour [sic] by 2020, and a substantial increase of alternative fuels, 36 billion gallons by 2022.”
— (Let’s just throw out your questions and reword ‘em my way, OK, skipper? Three questions — whew!)
— (35 miles per hour per gallon! Funny. But less funny is the fact that Mr. Bush never missed a beat. Everyone, all together, now — keep grinning, count the months, and don’t forget prayer.)

“But if you’re somebody that says greenhouse gases are of vital national interest, then you ought to be saying I’m for the development of nuclear power plants. It is by far the best solution to making sure we have economic growth and at the same time be good stewards of the environment.”
— (He said NUCULAR. He said it over and over. NUCULAR. What I find more “interstin,” though, is that the whitehouse.gov site corrects the spelling without note, without a “sic.” And, need we say, the argument about nucular plants is certainly not settled in their favor.)

Yesterday on WUNC we heard that the Congress passed the “ominous” spending bill.
How true.
A perfect ending to a perfect day.