1115.org

This is provided as a public service.

It’s not enough just to be grateful that he can make us laugh and cry at the same time. We need to properly celebrate his comic genius. Like all the great masters, he performs his magic right out in the open, before our very eyes:

We understand the fright that can come when you’re worried about a rocket landing on top of your home.

Just one single word lifts that from very funny to sheer comic genius: We understand the fright that can come when you’re worried about a rocket landing on top of your home.

Brilliant!

And I would contend that comedy of this caliber is always informed by a profound understanding of the psychology of stress.

It’s so easy to fall into sentimental assumptions. For example, that living under threat of rocket attack, every time you think about a rocket landing on top of your home it will inspire fright.

Not for nothing has Bush been The Terror President for most of his presidency. He understands, like no one else in the world (with the possible exception of Laura, of course), the psychology of those who are forced to live in terror, under constant threat of attack. He understands the ways in which men must steel themselves in order to be able to continue, the compromises they must make with themselves in order to not just survive, but survive with their human dignity intact.

Sometimes you think about a rocket landing on top of your home and fright does indeed come. But you simply couldn’t go on if fright came each time. So sometimes you think about a rocket landing on top of your home, and it makes you hungry. Sometimes it makes you horny. Sometimes it makes you think of summer rain. Sometimes it makes you go out and buy new clothes. Sometimes it makes you think: “Golda Meir really kicked ass!”. Sometimes it reminds you of a joke you heard last week at work. Sometimes it makes you kiss your spouse chastely on the cheek. Sometimes it makes you say to yourself: “That George Bush? One funny man!”