 |
 |
Ah, yes, wonderful Peggy Noonan. I, too, am an absolute fiend for cloying aphorisms! But what Baptist isn't? |
|
|
|
 |
|
I guess I'm just a silly optimist -- always looking for something to, if not give a silver lining, at least lessen the pounding, cold incessant rain that dampens and drowns everything worthwhile around us. (TO MAID:) Consuela! Ice! Y mi Parliment Menthol 100s. Pienso que ellos están en mi bolso del mahón. Gracias. |
|
|
|
|
|
How do you think America has changed under your husband's wonderfully plutocratic rule? |
|
|
|
|
|
You know, just this morning at breakfast, while I was enjoying my Pop Tart and refreshing my protein Rob Roy, Bushie was moaning about how unfair the game was on the back of the Count Chocula box, and I thought to myself, "There has never been a more fun time to be a Real American than now!" Jiminy Cricket, aren't we lucky? After all, if you are not an American-looking person, one minute you could be picking out tube socks at Wal-Mart and the next minute you could be hauled before a military court, sentenced and shot before your Muslim family -- or lawyer -- even realizes you are late for lamb brain casserole. |
|
|
|
|
|
And whereas the thoughtless Germans built their dreadful concentration camps in cold, dismal towns like Weimar, we show the cunning instincts of well-traveled cognoscenti to have ours set amongst the lovely, lilting coconut palms of tropical Guantanamo Bay. |
|
|
|
|
|
And yet they still complain! |
|
|
|
|
|
Those people always do. Speaking of people who complain, how are your twins Jenna and Barbara doing? |
|
|
|
|
|
Here I was thinking this interview was going so pleasantly and now you're trying to embarrass me, aren't you? Let me say right here and now: I don't read the tabloids, Betty. No mother wants to be exposed to that kind of outrageous, slutty trash about her daughters. |
|
|
|
|
|
I can imagine! Especially when the libelous filth is absolutely true. |
|
|
|
|
|
Well, it's like the President always says, it's important to raise your game of disinterest to the point where that whole "truth" thing doesn't even enter the picture. I just tell Jenna and that one who goes to SMU – |
|
|
|
|
|
Yale. |
|
|
|
|
|
Yale? My stars, well, good for her! Anyway, I just tell Jenna and the one at – Yale? – I'm so proud of myself! -- just what I've always told Bushie: "Just as long as I don't get a call in the middle of the night for bail, we're right as rain and I don't want to hear about it." |
|
|
|
|
|
Well, you have to be so, so careful with children. Left to their own devises, they can interfere with your delicate codependent relationship with a husband who jealously guards his right to be the constant center of attention. |
|
|
|
|
|
Yes, but when children and your hubby are fighting for what little attention you have allocated to others, a compromise is needed. |
|
|
|
|
|
I usually start by completely ignoring the children and go from there. |
|
|
|
|
|
When it comes to doling out attention, the President and I are of one mind, well, one and a half minds: Attention is what you buy pets for. |
|
|
|
|
|
And people aren't as likely to ask nosy questions when you put one of them down! |
|
|
|
|
|
Oh, poor Patsy Ramsey! Bless her heart. |
|
|
|
|
|
How does the President respond to your approach, dear? |
|
|
|
|
|
Well, he thinks my taking into account the twins' needs during holidays shows a weakness for compromise that smacks of the poison of bipartisanship. |
|
|
|
|
|
But by his own careless admission, he's a uniter, not a divider. (BOTH LAUGH FOR SEVERAL MINUTES) |
|
|
|
|
|
Well, to be honest, and I can say this with some authority as a teacher – |
|
|
|
|
|
Let's not go there again, dear. |
|
|
|
|
|
But as a teacher, I can say that Bushie never got the hang of that division stuff. I mean, He's always asking, "Does the number below the line go into the number above the little line – the other way around – or do you just draw a big purple line though both of them fellows?" Hell's bells, even though he worked on the budget tirelessly for a whole lunch with Kenny Boy and the accountants who got laid off from Enron, he thought this country had a dang surplus until yesterday. |
|
|
|
|
|
How did he find out? He is usually left blissfully unfettered by the more unflattering propensities of reality. |
|
|
|
|
|
That's what everyone around here is fixing to find out! It's Condi's job to shield him from what those fact-obsessed grumpy Gusses out there in the so-called Real World say, so I blame her.
(TO MAID:) ¡Consuela, el cántaro es vacío, usted basura mexicana, estúpida y perezosa!
(TO BETTY:) I bet you didn't know I could speak Mexican, did you Betty?
(TO MAID:) Consuela, uno más, usted sirviente dulce. Just leave the pitcher there, esclava. Gracias.
Ah, I'm starting to feel better. And you? Reminds me of when I was a teacher. Because that's what I was. A teacher! Betty? Where are you going?
|
|
|
|
|
|
THIS INTERVIEW: | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |
|
|
|
|
|
Reading Betty Bowers' First Interview with First Lady Laura Bush |
