Photo Op Extraordinaire: Bush Shakes Hands With Washington

Aide: Good morning, Mr. President.
Bush: (his feet up on the desk, trying to solve a Rubik’s cube) Well! Good morning to you, too, uh—good morning. What have you got there?
Aide: Just need your signature on these Iraq troop surge documents, sir.
Bush: Okey-doke, cap. Hand ‘em over.
Aide: You may want to give special attention to these ones on top, they’re from the Pentagon—
Bush: Yeah, yeah, Pentagon, sure. Let’s see—where do I sign?
Aide: At the bottom, sir… per usual.
Bush: Okey-doke.
(sings to himself while signing his name to all the papers)
“I been through the desert
On a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of
The rain…

In the desert
You can’t remember your name
Tum-ta-tum-tum-tum
For to give you no tum…

I said, ahhh-laaa-la-la-la-la”
--There! All done.
Aide: Thank you, sir.
Bush: No prob-lame-o, senor. Hey did you see me on TV this weekend, talking to George Washington and shakin’ his hand and everything?
Aide: No sir…

Bush: It was great! They took me up to his house, on Mount Verne, and I met him, big as life. The Father of Our Country. Big fella. Looked a lot younger than I thought he would…
Aide:(stiffens, skin crawling) Of course you know, sir…
Bush: What?
Aide: Of course you know, sir, that that wasn’t…the…”real”…
Bush: Oh come on! I know it wasn’t really George Washington, come on. I know he was an actor. Hey--that’s a little disturbing, that YOU thought that I thought… (laughs) Well, I guess you had a right to suspect that, after my little “incident” with Leonard Nimoy…
Aide:(greatly relieved) Yessir.
Bush: Still…it was quite an honor. To shake hands with George Washington…The very first president of the United States. Tony Blair never shook hands with King Arthur, I bet. I shook hands with King Arthur, it was at a Renaissance fair in Missouri, I think…I’ll never forget that moment I shook hands with Washington…not until the day I die…Think of it--I got to shake hands with the first guy to sit here, in this chair…
Aide: Well, technically, sir—
Bush: What?
Aide:(thinks better of it) …Nothing, sir.
Bush: He was a very friendly man, too. Nothing stuck up about him, despite his greatness… He looked good in that wig. Maybe I should get a wig…
Aide: I don’t know about that, sir.
Bush: No, not for appearing in public, dummy. I would only wear it in private, around the West Wing. It would be kind of like my “thinkin’ cap,” my “George Washington thinkin’ cap.”
Aide: I don’t think that’s a very good idea, sir. It would upset the members of your Cabinet, very much…
Bush: You think so?
Aide: I do, sir. I really do.
Bush: (stares at him for a moment, then says) Okay then, let it go.
(Aide sighs in relief.)
Bush: But one thing I would like to do is set up a committee. An executive committee, to explore whether I can get my picture taken shaking hands with all of the presidents.
Aide: I’ll make a note of that, sir.
Bush: How many of them are there, a hundred?
Aide: More like fifty, sir.
Bush: Good! It’ll only take half as long, then. That’s our goal. Get my picture taken shaking hands with all the presidents, dead or alive. It’s historical. It would be the first time any president did that, wouldn’t it?
Aide: Yes, sir.
Bush: And the pictures don’t have to all be taken at Mount Verne, it could be in front of that big statue they carved on Mount Seymour or wherever, any place presidential like that. (thinks) Maybe one day I’ll end up with my face on Mount Seymour.
Aide: Yes sir.
Bush: We’ll have to be careful with how we pose the Lincoln and Kennedy pictures, they had head wounds.
Aide: Yes, sir. May I go now sir?
Bush: What? Oh, sure. Skiddaddle. (picks up cube again) Now to solve this damn puzzle thing…(picks up cube, struggles with it.) Hey… this isn’t a Rubik’s cube…it’s a photo cube. This is me, my wife and my kids, and the dog and Dick. No wonder I couldn’t—what a waste of a morning. (puts it back on the desk, leans back in his chair, stares out the window, sings:)
“After three days
In the desert sun,
My teeth began to turn red…”