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--></style><title>Great column: Maureen Dowd</title></head><body>
<div><font color="#000000">This would be hysterically funny if it
wasn't so true.</font></div>
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<div><font color="#000000">m.</font></div>
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<div><font color="#000000">*********</font></div>
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<div><font color="#000000">The New York Times</font></div>
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<div><font color="#000000"><br>
July 1, 2007<br>
Op-Ed Columnist<br>
Tears on My Pillow<br>
By MAUREEN DOWD<br>
<br>
"I miss Albania!" W. wails. "They know how to treat a president
there. Women were kissing me and men rubbed my hair. The crowd kept
yelling, 'Bushie!,' and they almost grabbed the watch right off my
wrist trying to get at me."<br>
<br>
The concerned group huddling outside the president's closed-bedroom
door in Kennebunkport can barely hear him. His voice is muffled
because he has his face buried in his feather pillow, which the Secret
Service has carefully transported from Washington to Maine for the
weekend, knowing that it would be needed. They guard it so
conscientiously that they have even given it a code name. Since the
president's Secret Service name is Tumbler, his agents christened
his beloved pillow Slumber.<br>
<br>
"Son, I know how you feel," Poppy calls in to him, trying to sound
positive. "Riding high in 2002, shot down in 2007. That's life, as
Sinatra says. You were a puppet and a pawn to King Dick and it screwed
up your presidency and our party and the Middle East and the Atlantic
alliance and the family legacy and Jeb's future, not to mention the
fate of the planet. But you can't just roll yourself up in a big
ball and die, George. Your friend Vlad the Impaler is here, and I
think you should come out and talk to him. You invited him and he came
all the way from Russia, and you don't want to be rude.<br>
<br>
"I've already taken him to Mabel's Lobster Claw and out on the
boat. He scared all the fish away. I don't know what else to do with
him, George. He brained the Filipino manservant, the little brown one,
with a horseshoe."<br>
<br>
Putin steps forward. "Let me try," he tells Poppy.<br>
<br>
"George, hey, it's me, Ostrich Legs, Pooty Poot. Remember when you
gave me those nicknames? Come out, and I show you my real soul. Dark,
dark, dark. I put the Putin back in Rasputin. Listen, Albania stinks.
Maine much nicer. I saw Moose and Squirrel in the woods. Let's throw
horseshoes at them! I love this American sport."<br>
<br>
Tumbler burrows into Slumber. "Why doesn't anybody like me
anymore, Daddy?" he keens. "Man, I miss Tony. My Iraq poodle left
me with a porcupine. And I can't believe my own Republicans crossed
me on the immigration bill. Now my Mexican buddies from Midland are
saying, 'Adiós, Jorge.' Vice doesn't even want to be in the
same branch of government as me. Where is Dick, by the way?"<br>
<br>
His mother steps briskly up to the door. "Now listen, Georgie,"
Barbara says. "We didn't invite Dick. He's not our kind. He has
utterly ruined your presidency. There's a Washington Post series I
want you to read. I've put it in the kitchen by your bowl of Cookie
Crisps. It explains all about how Dick played you for a fool on
everything from Iraq to capital gains. He set up the West Wing paper
flow in a way that undermined your goals and advanced his. He let you
act like you were the Decider, dear, when you were really just the
Dupe."<br>
<br>
W. howls, "Dick promised me I would never be a wimp and now I'm a
wimp!"<br>
<br>
Putin intervenes. "No, George, don't blame Dick," he says.
"Dick good man. Shoots friend in face. But Dick too soft. Friend
lived. He needs put more people in your Gitmo gulag, shut down
newspapers, kill more critics. I'll send you some of my special
polonium-210 pellets. They just like Altoids, curiously strong."<br>
<br>
Clarence Thomas rushes up to the door, black robes flapping. "I got
here as fast as I could," he assures Poppy, before yelling in to W.:
"I'm sorry about the Guantánamo decision. I don't know what my
brethren were thinking, applying the Constitution to Cuba. What's
law got to do with it? I should have fought harder. I was a little
distracted by our decision to stop race from being a factor in making
schools racially diverse. I needed to make sure that black children
all over America would have none of the advantages I had."<br>
<br>
Henry Kissinger oils his way across the floor. "Mr. President," he
rumbles through the door, "it's not so bad bungling a war. I got
to date Jill St. John."</font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><br>
Condi joins the group, and wrinkles her nose at Putin. He puts his arm
around her and gives her head a noogie. "When I said U.S. aggression
is like Third Reich," he tells her, with his most charming K.G.B.
smile, "I meant it in a good way."</font><br>
<font color="#000000"></font></div>
<div><font color="#000000">Condi ignores him and coos to W.:
"There's bad news and good news, sir. Or maybe it's Vice versa.
Cheney's going to pardon Scooter. And the Albanians have agreed to
put your presidential library in Tirana."</font><br>
<font color="#000000"></font></div>
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