Our President the ‘Toon

We went around the room in my public speaking class, each person offering a topic for an upcoming group project. After hearing some interest in current events, I thought it would be appropriate to offer the most obvious topic: the war in Iraq and its global and national effects. I was hit with responses of, “Does anyone care about the war?” and “Do people in the class even know what the war is about?” After a show of hands exposed nearly half the class knew about the war, I was asked to explain our military occupation. I suggested my classmates Google it. This short discussion that my topic sparked did not surprise me. News polls show that a large percentage of American citizens do not have a clue; anything is possible in a country run by a president who has become the nation’s quintessential “dumbass.”

For nearly eight years, our president has given America countless amounts of comedic material. Saturday Night Live showed late night television the idiocy and childlike behavior of President Bush through Will Ferrell’s mastery of impersonation. Frank Caliendo mastered the dim-witted Texas twang on MADtv. Comedy Central is no amateur at creating Bush related humor with the short-lived That’s My Bush! and the latest Lil’ Bush. This summer’s blockbuster Transformers portrayed Bush as the bed-lounging, Ding-Dong craving president aboard Air Force One. And Bush’s likeness has appeared on South Park, The Simpsons, and Family Guy; clearly not the smartest gun-slinger in the Lone Star state.

It is heart breaking to realize that our country is being managed by a caricature of a walking cartoon. Good observers will always find fault or the idiosyncrasies in people, but never has a president been the brunt of so many comedic jokes. Our president’s portrayal as an incoherent buffoon is far from adoration. He has transcended mockery as a form of flattery. Now the joke is on the American people who felt it necessary to reelect him.

Despite the many laughs Jon Stewart gives us on a nightly basis with his updates on “Messopotamia,” any person who is not clouded by a rightwing endearment must realize the great embarrassment our country is suffering and the suffering our country’s actions are causing. Over the past seven years, our actions have slowly isolated ourselves from the rest of the world. As the rest of the world keeps watch over our every move, the fact that we have a cartoon portraying Dick Cheney as a little boy who grunts and eats live animals does not help our international image. If Osama gets cable in his cave, he is certainly being entertained at our expense.

For the existence of this presidential entertainment, our country must thank the first amendment. Attempting to alter the amendment to remove all public tomfoolery at President Bush’s expense sounds like an episode of South Park or Lil’ Bush. Hopefully, our President would have the decency to never amend the first amendment; then again, would he?

Fortunately and unfortunately, time is dwindling for George W. Bush related humor as his second term slowly comes to an end. Depending on the next elected president, one may lend himself or herself to more comedic antics; we have to wait two years to find out. No candidate will ever be safe from Matt Stone and Trey Parker, Jon Stewart, and David Letterman with Stone and Parker having already made Hillary, nuclear missiles, and her private parts the joke of an episode. If nothing good has come out of President Bush’s tenure in the white house, at least many of us have shared a lot of laughs. Unfortunately, these laughs come with great pain and suffering for our country and the rest of the planet.

This article in "The Hurricane"