He was drinking again.

What did it matter?  Nothing mattered any more.

God had clearly deserted him.   God who had told him what to do all along.   God who had virtually begged him to become Leader; who had let the infidels maul his armies, blow up his cities and permitted hurricanes to make him look like an incompetent fool.  Bloody God!

He hurled an empty vodka bottle at the White House dog.  He’d have to remember to find some gasoline from somewhere to burn it and Laura’s bodies when they were done.   Perhaps Halliburton would come through with a gallon or two after all he’d done for them.  He’d shoot Laura and then take the pills.  It wasn’t that he was a coward, he had just never cared for pain.  Always preferred inflicting it.

Where was Rumsfeld anyway with those regiments?   Phantom regiments,  he had called them last night, when Bush moved them neatly into position on the big map.   Phantom?  What was he talking about.   They were the finest National Guardsmen ever sent abroad to attack others in defense of their country.  Far better than hanging around inAlabama getting drunk.  Or sitting waiting for some local disaster in case they might be useful.   How often did hurricanes hit anyway?  Better to be out there searching the streets of some Arab town for improvised explosives.   So what a lot of them hadn’t come back?  What had they got to lose?  OK , a few neurotic parents had complained about the senseless waste of youth.  But who hadn’t senselessly wasted their youth?  Why some nights in Houston he had been so drunk he could hardly hold the cocaine bottle.  Now Rumsfeld was claiming he had no regiments left.   Well, duh, Herr Rumsfeld, get some new boys.  Stick some twelve year olds in uniform. They like uniforms.  Get them some new automatic weapons and a Hummer and put ‘em out there on the streets of oldBaghdad.  Can’t be more dangerous than dealing with gang wars in Philadelphia.  They wouldn’t mind dying in defense of their country.  He hadn’t particularly cared to do that himself, but then he had much more to lose.  Easy to squander your life when you’re not rich, but his Pappy had always tried to keep him out of the firing line.  His dear Pappy, who had tried to warn him.   “You can’t just ignore everyone.  Even the French can be useful” he had said as he uncorked a Chateau-bottled Saudi, another nice gift from Bandar.

Where was that Rove?  Sniveling coward.  Keeping a low profile as usual, avoiding the paparazzi and trying to figure a way to sneak out of the White House Bunker without being caught.   It was all his fault.   I can make you a great Leader.  Blame it on the left.   Blame it on the media.  Blame it on the Jews.   Just blame somebody and then they’ll all cheer.  Then go to war, and label your enemies traitors.  Been done before a million times.

So what went wrong?   They’d had it made.  Corporate sponsors kissed his ass, billions of tax payers dollars to spend.  The Democrats dull, dim and defeated, and now this.  This ingratitude.   They all deserved to die.  Americans.  They weren’t worthy of him.  Not man enough to stand and let the country die for him?  The fact was they didn’t deserve him.

That god damn rat Cheney had had the gall to ask him if he could slip off toSouth America last night.  Muttered something about a new heart attack medication that he’d heard of in the jungle, but that was bullshit.  He was just running.  As usual. Whenever there was trouble.   It was always me who had to go and stand in front of the troops and say how well we’d done after each disaster.  Not Dick.   Oh no, Dick would be bunkered down in some safe base running the country.  Well fuck Dick.   He was a prick.  A greedy bastard.  Sure, if you’re gonna run a Country like a Company better to have a Company you know run it, but how many billions had he made?   And how much had he really passed along to the poor geek that they had got to speak for them.  Not nearly enough.

A call from Powell. To say goodbye.  Well that was nice of the chap.  He’d never thought much of him.  Too much of a soldier, but still.  Where was Rumsfeld and his regiments?  They’re going to lose me this war, he said, forgetting for a moment.  The war on terror.  His legacy.  Finally a war against a decent noun.  A war that need never stop. Terror?   He’d shown them.  Remember Shock and Awe?   Well that showed thoseBaghdad bastards who was who?   Stupid bleeding heart civilians holding up bloody babies and whimpering to CNN.  Surgical strikes, that’s what his Air Force said.  And only afterwards had the pictures seemed a little less certain.  Perhaps a bit more like surgery, with missing limbs.  He chuckled at his joke.   But those fabulous distant days of good explosions on TV, now they were ratings.   In those days he could do no wrong, looking stern, watching the planes lift off from carrier decks in the dull dawn.  Blair on the phone saying “Yes, yes, we can do it. Go Baby.  Go Baby Bush!” At last the rush he’d not felt since the cocaine days.  Now even the voting machines were turning against him.

He could hear the secretaries crying in the bunker corridor.  What was so bad for them?  He was the one leaving.  He was the one they’d be watching turn to toast in the Rose Garden.

Condi came in to ask him what she should wear for his funeral.   The black or the red?   There’s not going to be a damn funeral.  We’re having a simple family cremation.  The previous night there had been some loose talk about Cheney poisoning his wife and children.  Now wouldn’t that have been nice?  But he had been lying of course.  His jungle retreat apparently was ready.  They had a pool.  Jacuzzi.  Life support machine.   The finest stuff KBR could provide.  Corporate jet standing by.   Bastards!

From Bush:  The Last Ten Days.

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