What I learned from President Bush today

(hatch! @ – promoted by buhdydharma )

I hope you never have to learn what a SigAlert is.

Okay, I’ll tell you: A SigAlert is when traffic gets so bad on an L.A. freeway that even L.A. drivers say, “Damn! This traffic is bad!“

I had the opportunity to enjoy a SigAlert this morning. It was not my first SigAlert.

Which – as I found out – gave me something in common with President Bush. Sort of.

See, his press conference this morning – which I had the opportunity to listen to only because it coincided with my time spent enjoying the SigAlert – was, as he told one reporter, not his first rodeo. Nor, evidently, even his second.

I didn’t know President Bush had ever been in a rodeo.

See what you can learn when you’re stuck in traffic?

Speaking of being stuck in traffic, I can now hardly wait to have hot bamboo shoots thrust under my fingernails (which probably doesn’t constitute “torture” by President Bush’s definition, but I don’t know for sure, because when a reporter asked him how he would define “torture,” he said torture was defined in U.S. law, but regardless, he did know for sure that America does not torture).

Why am I looking forward to the bamboo shoots? Well, because they will almost certainly be less excruciating than listening to a Bush press conference while in the middle of a SigAlert – and one thing I know for sure, without even looking it up, is that listening to George Bush embarrass himself in front of the White House press corps while I’m stuck with 100,000 of my closest personal friends on the San Diego Freeway doesn’t qualify as torture, as much as it might feel like it does – because, like the president said today, America does not torture – which, I presume, includes America’s interstate highway system.

And, as far as the whole “U.S. law” thing, I guess I will have to look that up. I’m just not sure which memo to refer to: the old, pre-denunciation-of-torture memo, or the newer, post-first-denunciation-of-torture-but-pre-new-denunciation-of-torture memo. I’ll have to get back to you on that.

Okay, so besides the fact that I learned that President Bush has been in a rodeo (I want photos! Better yet – YouTube! Anyone? Anyone?), and that “America does not torture” (even though I already knew that), I found out that,

There’s a better way to deal with terrorist activities than by sending massive troops into Iraq.

If you’re Turkey.

I mean.

I learned that

We can’t win in Iraq militarily – which is what the president has said all along.

But we’re making progress.

I learned that

The United States cannot impose peace or force people to make hard decisions; it can only encourage the development of a state.

Check.

I learned that

Blackwater employees in Iraq make a sacrifice when they provide a valuable service protecting people’s lives.

Oh – and I learned that

Democrats in Congress agree with the president about Iraq.

We pretty much knew that already. But I also learned that

The office of president used to be part of the legislature but now it’s not.

When NBC’s David Gregory asked President Bush what his reaction had been to Israel’s bombing of the nuclear facility in Osirak, Iraq, in 1981, I learned that,

President Bush doesn’t remember what he was doing in 1981.

I wonder why?

I learned that even though he could see into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s soul one time when he met him,

He can’t do the same thing from a picture in the newspaper this morning.

I guess he’ll have to wait to get within shoulder-massaging distance again before he truly knows how Vladie (rhymes with “Laddie”) feels about Iran.

I learned that

If you’re Russian, centralized authority is in your genes.

– not in your soul. It’s a recessive gene, I think, but still.

I learned that

When the President has a picture of himself taken with a foreign leader, he’s walking down the colonnades, and the picture sends a good message.

Like that picture of the president holding hands with Saudi Prince Abdullah, I guess (except for there’s no colonnades – and I’m not sure “Oil is about to hit $80 a barrel” qualifies as a good message).

I learned that

Americans don’t have a right to know whether Syria is a subject of the nonproliferation talks with North Korea.

But probably best of all, I learned that

President Bush is planning to name himself Prime Minister after his term as president expires.

I am very grateful to my president for not torturing me while I was stuck in traffic. I look forward to the opportunity not to be tortured in a similar fashion in the very near future.