News To Me: Bush List Found
Fifty-nine years into his life and well into his second term as President, George W. Bush is nearing the end of the “To Do” list that has served as both the summary and driving force of his ambitions. A recently obtained copy of the list and countless subsequent interviews with White House staffers, politicos and Beltway insiders begins to paint a portrait of a calculating and methodical man who has built his life upon a specific blueprint instead of what most people have seen as a random series of unpredictable, reckless and just plain stupid decisions.
In the shape of a paper airplane with the words “ Mission Accomplished” written across the wings, the list was discovered by a reporter in the leaves of a rubber tree plant in a West Wing conference room. A White House aide who refused to be identified said that the conference room often served as a place where the president bounced ideas as well as paper airplanes off his staff.
A full-size photocopy of the list is available by clicking here. Several scientific analysts were consulted and verified the handwriting and dried saliva stains as belonging to Bush. The list appears to have been originally written in the 1970’s and then edited in subsequent years.
While many of the items seem self-explanatory, further investigation of each one begins to form a window, albeit a tinted one, into the heart of the 47th President.
The first item (“1. Play guitar with Allman Brothers”) gives us the hint that the list was originally created before 1971, the year that Duane Allman died. Subsequent entries demonstrate one of two things about the younger Bush: 1) the uncanny ability to admire musicians destined to die untimely deaths due to flying accidents, or 2) everything he touches turns to shit. While this reporter cannot speculate which of the two possibilities is true, he can only wish that if it happened to be the second, the president had not lost hope and taken subsequent interests in the Georgia Satellites and Nickelback.
The second item (“2. Quit drinking”) shows the president as his former playboy self, possibly beginning to seriously consider the path his life was taking and want something more for himself. This is later contradicted in item four (“4. Develop a partnership with Jesus”). Despite the seemingly obvious connection to the President’s prominent Christian belief, former friends say that this item actually referred to Jesus Martinez, a Midland cocaine dealer who is currently serving a 20-year sentence in Texas State Prison.
List item five (“5. Get dad’s job – the good one”) shows a George W. Bush growing in ambition. We can only speculate that “the good one” is referring to the President of the United States and not the Director of the CIA.
For all its cryptic insight, item six (“6. Own an IROC”) on the list has created the most controversy. Taken literally, the young Bush is expressing his desire to own a Camero IROC-Z, a popular muscle car of the 1980’s (hence the “vroom, vroom!”). However, there are no records of the President ever owning such a car and neither current nor former friends have any recollection of such a car. So why would this item checked off with an exclamatory “Yeah, Baby!”?One surfacing theory is that over the past 30 plus years in which George W. Bush has been referring to this list, some items may have lost their original meaning. Further, some items might have even been mis-read by Bush himself. If that is possible, could it be that the “IROC” he wanted to own came to be interpreted by the 47th President as Iraq? Given the nearly identical pronunciation, this reporter can only wonder.
Comments
Three words: this was great!
Posted by: nicole | April 19, 2006 09:11 PM
I can't think of a fun activity that costs as little as making paper airplanes. Just bring some used sheets from the office and you're good to go. No need to spend on expensive toys to have fun. The variety of paper airplane designs is also amazing. There are 50 kinds you can fold from http://www.paperairplaneshq.com with video instructions.
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