Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Somehow, despite everything Calvin Trillin wrote about the Bush Administration in Obliviously On He Sails, his 2004 bestseller in verse, George W. Bush is still in the White House. Taking a philosophical view, Trillin has said, âWe werenât going to know whether you could bring down a presidency with iambic pentameter until somebody tried it.â
Now Trillin is trying again, back at his pithy and hilarious best to comment on the Presidentâs decision to go to war in Iraq (âThen terrorists could count on what weâd do: / Attack us, weâll strike back, though not at youâ), his religiosity (âHe treats his critics in the press / As if theyâre yapping Pekineses. / Reporters deal in mundane facts; / This man has got the word from Jesusâ), and whether he was wearing a transmitting device in the first presidential debate (âCould this explain his odd expressions? Is there proof he / Was being told, âIf you can hear me now, look goofyâ?â)
Trillin deals with the people around Bush, such as Nanny Dick Cheney and Mushroom Cloud Rice and Orange John Ashcroft and Orange Johnâs successor, Alberto Gonzales (âThe A.G.âs to be one Alberto Gonzalesâ / Dependable, actually loyal Ăźber allesâ). He tries to predict the behavior of the famously intemperate John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations in poems with titles like âBolton Chases French Ambassador Up Treeâ and âWhite House Says Bolton Can Do Job Even While in Straitjacket.â
Finally, in dealing with whether the entire Bush Administration, like the unfortunate Brownie, has done a heckuva job, he composes a small-government sea chantey for the Republicans:
âCause governmentâs the problem, lads,
Americans would all do well to shun it.
Yes, governmentâs the problem, lads.
At least it is when weâre the ones who run it.
|
