Weapon of Mass Distraction

10/07/02 8:02 P.M. EDT. THE PRESIDENT: “Many Americans have raised legitimate questions: about the nature of the threat; about the urgency of action — why be concerned now; about the link between Iraq developing weapons of terror, and the wider war on terror. These are all issues we've discussed broadly and fully within my administration. And tonight, I want to share the answer with you: It’s the oil, stupid. And my one-man fatwah against daddy’s nemesis. After all, this is the guy who tried to kill my dad. And don’t forget the fall elections — nothing buoys public approval ratings, distracts the booboisie from a moribund economy, and puts steam in my slacks like a little carpet-bombing. Sure, the pricetag for this thing is going to be big —$200 billion, according to White House economist Lawrence Lindsey, a sum that will mandate savage cuts to school budgets and police forces across the nation. As for the coming war’s cost in American blood, well, there is no easy or risk-free course of action. War is hell — or at least it looked like hell on the nightly news during my toga-party tour of duty in the Texas Air National Guard in 1968. Can you believe I squeaked through the pilot aptitude test with a 25 percent — the lowest acceptable grade — just when I was 12 days away from losing my student draft deferment, right when 350 Americans were dying in Vietnam at the rate of 350 a week? Is that dumb luck, or what?!? Then again, maybe the fact that daddy was a congressman from Houston had something to do with my admission… In any event, if the bodybags start coming home, I’ll show those cynics in the liberal media elite how easily we Bushes cry. Compassionate conservatism is more than just an empty slogan, as anyone knows who heard my lump-in-the-throat eulogy for the nine Israelis killed when a suicide bomber blew their bus to kingdom come. En route to the golf course with daddy, I paused, club in hand, for a solemn moment with the assembled press corps: ‘There are a few killers who want to stop the peace process that we have started, and we must not let them,’ I said. ‘I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers. Thank you. Now watch this drive.’ Anyhoo, by the time our doughboys hit Baghdad city limits, I’ll be feeling no pain, skimming across the sun-kissed waves of Kennebunkport in Poppy’s cigarette boat, high on the crack cocaine of power and privilege that comes with being the fortunate son of American royalty. I guess that about covers it, my fellow citizens. Any questions?”