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, "We
weren't going to know whether you could bring down a
presidency with iambic pentameter until somebody tried it."
Now Trillin is trying again, back at his pithy and hilarious
best to comment on the President's decision to go to war in
Iraq ("Then terrorists could count on what we'd do: / Attack
us, we'll strike back, though not at you"), his religiosity
("He treats his critics in the press / As if they're yapping
Pekineses. / Reporters deal in mundane facts; / This man has
got the word from Jesus"), and whether he was wearing a
transmitting device in the first presidential debate ("Could
this explain his odd expressions? Is there proof he / Was
being told, �If you can hear me now, look goofy'?")
Trillin deals with the people around Bush, such as Nanny
Dick Cheney and Mushroom Cloud Rice and Orange John Ashcroft
and Orange John's successor, Alberto Gonzales ("The A.G.'s
to be one Alberto Gonzales-- / Dependable, actually loyal
�ber alles"). He tries to predict the behavior of the
famously intemperate John Bolton as ambassador to the United
Nations in poems with titles like "Bolton Chases French
Ambassador Up Tree" and "White House Says Bolton Can Do Job
Even While in Straitjacket."
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:
'Cause government's the problem, lads,
Americans would all do well to shun it.
Yes, government's the problem, lads.
At least it is when we're the ones who run it.
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