In dog that didn’t bark news, we’ve had no sightings of an Obama administration Rodham brother equivalent.
Or a Neil Bush lookalike.
But such is the volume of loose cash sloshing about the world that some of it is still, still available to the dimmest bulb of an out of power family.
When former President George W. Bush celebrates his finest hour this September 11, thoughts will naturally turn to other members of the Bush clan in exile.
Shifty Uncle Prescott has passed, Jeb Bush remains out of reach, brother Martin remains in the obscurity of the DC suburbs*, but good old Neil Bush is still out there, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. National treasure Ken Silverstein has a great roundup of Neil’s post-Keating hustles on Salon.
Silverstein offers some hope that the arc of history does bend towards justice, or at least shrinking margins for evil. He reports Bush’s compensation for doing not much may be declining over time.
Now the current president has joined this proud line, with North Carolina gas station robber donning an Obama mask to do the deed.
Despite the crime wave, this is one of the least troubling parts of the Swayze legacy. The the late actor was recently offered as an excuse for the multiple has-been-ed Jennifer Grey to appear on the last round up, “Dancing With The Stars.”
Special thanks to the eagle eyes at Wonkette, who’ve spotted a big one.
Extraordinarily cheezeball artist Jon McNaughton has brought forth a gathering of greats, as the ghosts of presidents past hover around sullen, stand-offish looking Barack Obama, variously annoyed or aghast at his literal TRAMPLING ON THE CONSTITUTION!
McNaughton is the kind of crank who rambles along in incoherent Founderspeak for numbered paragraphs, passive aggressively concluding:
Cramming all these figures into the frame seems to have skewed McNaughton’s perspective. Small but perfectly formed James Madison is so upset at Obama’s boot-heel to our liberties that he’s bent over pleading, but appears to be almost Obama’s height. The Forgotten Man is a giant seated on a toy town bench. Such is the occasion that Franklin Roosevelt walks.
McNaughton’s painting doesn’t leave much to chance, featuring ominous clouds, flags at half staff, and an accompanying video lush with piano chords of doom.
Hopes for a dynasty-free nation soared with the sputtering end of George W. Bush’s administration and the announced retirement of the Kennedy’s last office holder.
Over The Shoulder, Out Of Reach
But new threats emerge.
Jimmy Carter’s Grandson has been elected to the Georgia State Senate, and Richard Nixon’s Grandson aspires to do in a Long Island Democratic Congressman if the Republican nomination can be secured.
The drums have grown silent on George P. “little brown one” Bush’s inevitable rise to greatness, but all this can’t but help build the tired stench.
George W. Bush has shown his sensitive side to gathering of the faithful, while interested observers puzzled over an exciting new Bush mystery:
Where did they hide the papers this time?
The former President repeated claims he’ll stay above the political fray, while saying former President Carter had “made my life miserable.”
The Bush administration alumni gathered in Washington just as yet another old rock turned over. One piece of information gained from the Justice Department investigation of John Yoo’s torture memos was the exciting news that many of Yoo’s emails from the period were unavailable.
Apparently because they were deleted.
