To #44, from #43
As is customary for departing presidents, George W. “Sillypants” Bush left a letter on the desk in the Oval Office for President Obama with sage advice for our newest, blackest president. The contents of that letter were not publicly known.
Until now.
Until now.
Dear Barak O. Bama,
Hooooo, boy! Has it ever been a long 8 years, am I right? I mean, yeah, the digs are alright and I like the limo, but hows about the pay? That was the thing I always wanted to do – give myself a raise. I mean, yeah, they’ll always tell you that it looks bad to do that, but who cares, am I right? Let me tell you, Bama, you should really succeed where I failed: Raise your salary. With the econo-thingy the way it is, $400,000 a year really isn’t enough to raise a family on.
And I tell you what, I hope you took a good long vacation before you got here, because all those news-watching Huffington Post types just flip a bitch every time I try to take a month or so off. Don’t let that stop you, though – the media’s got this liberal bias thing happening that I keep hearing about, so they’ll probably spin all your vacations as some sort of Ramadadan Muslim spring break deal. Oh, but here’s a tip: Never be on vacation when there’s a flood, because then everybody just freaks out like it’s your fault or something. And heads up, if there is a flood when you’re on vacation, they’re going to expect you to cut your trip short. Yeah, I know, B.S., right? That means no going to birthday parties on the way back. Trust me, I figured that one out the hard way. Honestly, your best bet is to just try and kick back in the White House. If you wear shades to cabinet meetings you can sleep right through them with nobody noticing, and then you can always catch some football on the bigscreen upstairs. Just chew those pretzels carefully.
Yes, Air Force 1 is awesome and yes, the pilot will do a barrel roll for you, but only if you threaten to deport his family.
Oh man, but those Press Core people? Well, after two or three press secretaries we managed to calm ‘em down (shit, how many press secretaries did I have? Even when I’m sober I can’t remember that sort of stuff) but they’re a wily bunch, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they get right back to their old tricks once it’s you up there on stage. Those cocky bastards have no respect. They’ll start asking you questions about what kind of stuff you and the boys are doing – as if they have a right to know! I mean, my Dad was president, for God’s sake! Don’t they get it? I’m, like, the prince. I’m the Prince of America.
They tell me you’ve got a family. That’s real great. I’ve got one too. I’ve got a couple of kids – daughters, I think three of them, but who can be sure? Let me tell you, though, I know for damn sure I’ve got a wife. Man, she is always around! And if she isn’t, then there’s some Secret Service guy watching me who’ll tell her where I am. Oh, man, I can’t even tell you how hard it is to get a little side action around here, what with all these people watching. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. After a rough day of not finding weapons of mass destruction, there’s nothing like a cold beer and a non-wrinkled biddy with a couple of interesting piercings. I snuck ‘em in through the underground escape tunnels, but if you need more – and I heard that you people do – there’s other options. When Clinton gave me the grand tour, he showed me this pneumatic doohickey he had rigged up in his bathroom that would literally suck sorority girls out of the George Washington University campus and drop ‘em off on his lap. Now that’s what I call a series of tubes!
You want some real advice, though? This country sucks. Nobody here will ever cut you any slack, ever. So if you were hoping to just sort of lay low for 8 years, good luck. Everybody in this damn country is going to be watching everything you do, and if they decide that they don’t like it or it doesn’t agree with their precious fucking Constitution they’re all, “Hey! Worst president ever!” Keith Olbermann is like some sort of robot who was designed to only say mean things, people with blogs are pretty much terrorists, and never hire Stephen Colbert to speak at a dinner party, because that guy is basically one big liar. Saddam really had it figured out – he did his own thing and nobody said boo about it. Everybody respected the crap out of that guy because he’d kill you if you talked bad about him. And was his Dad president? No! It’s not even fair at all. Read my lips: America blows goats. People can say whatever they want to about the president. You hear me, Bama? Goats.
They never give you the benefit of the doubt or anything. You know what I heard today? My approval rating is 33%! That means only 67% of the country approves of what I’m doing! That’s like a D+, and sure that sort of thing flies at Yale, but this is the real world! Bunch of whiners is what they are. Don’t they get that being president is a hard job? Sure, I’ve made a couple of slipups that might have gotten a few people killed or plunged a country into sectarian violence, but it’s a hard job! They just don’t get that. Sure, maybe I wasn’t totally qualified to do the job, and sure, maybe I wasn’t 100% elected that first time, but it’s a hard freaking job! Doesn’t that count for anything? Not in the US of fucking A, I guess.
So you really want to know what my advice is? Just do stuff and don’t look back. One good thing about this place is that everybody is way too lazy to impeach you, no matter what kind of crazy shit you do, so go to town. You’re the third most powerful man in America after the Vice President and whatever Karl Rove is. You can do whatever you want.
Sincerely yours,
George W. Bush
Prince of America
Truman Capps wishes a plethora of shoes and pretzels on our ex-president.