The Booby Prez
The following is from the London News Review.

Bush Bike Tumble: why George Jr is the unfunniest clown in town
May 23, 2004

President Bush has hurt his chin. Gave it a good old scrape on a dirt track after hitting a bump and flying face-first off his mountain bike. It must have been quite a sight – not something that his secret service bodyguards and private physician, who were pedaling along with him, will forget in a hurry. The President sprawling like a toddler, with scuffed knees and a chinful of gravel.

According to White House spokesman Trent Duffy: "He had minor abrasions and scratches on his chin, upper lip, nose, right hand and both knees. Dr Tubb [his physician] cleaned his scratches and said he was fine." Duffy blamed the weather for the spill: "It's been raining a lot and the topsoil is loose.”

Whatever the cause of the fall, the result is going to be a load of more jokes about goonish Mr Bush and how he’s always toppling over (remember the pretzel incident? And the Segway tumble?)

And the problem with these jokes is that, no matter how barbed they are, they make us chuckle and think "what an idiot!" - and that is not the appropriate reaction to President Bush. There is something oddly indulgent about this laughter, and President Bush is not someone who should be cheerfully indulged.

Remember how he gooned around in that presentation he made for journalists in Washington? Made a joke out of the Coalition's failure to find any WMDs... here's how the Guardian reported it:

A slide showed Mr Bush in the Oval office, leaning to look under a piece of furniture. "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be here somewhere," he told the audience, drawing applause.

Another slide showed him peering into another part of the office, "Nope, no weapons over there," he said, laughing. "Maybe under here," he said, as a third slide was shown.

Quite amazing. And again, not funny in the slightest.

President Bush is no laughing matter. Gone is the time when we can chuckle about what a klutz he is. The man stole an election by dispossessing black voters in Florida. Nothing funny about that. He is carving up the environment to suit his big-business buddies. And he is ultimately responsible for the slaughter, the ongoing slaughter, of thousands of Iraqis. Not to mention the hundreds of coalition troops who have paid the ultimate price for American pride and profits.

Oh, and Afghanistan. That wasn't funny either.