George W. Bush Looks To The Future

Via a NY Times article, President Bush discusses his post-presidency plans-

First, Mr. Bush said, "I’ll give some speeches, just to replenish the ol’ coffers." With assets that have been estimated as high as nearly $21 million, Mr. Bush added, "I don’t know what my dad gets — it’s more than 50-75" thousand dollars a speech, and "Clinton’s making a lot of money."

Then he said, "We’ll have a nice place in Dallas," where he will be running what he called "a fantastic Freedom Institute" promoting democracy around the world. But he added, "I can just envision getting in the car, getting bored, going down to the ranch."

A fantastic Freedom Institute? Sweet! Can't wait to visit the torture and warrantless wiretapping wings, take a photo in the free-speech zone, and read the voluminous texts about our victories in Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran.

Elsewhere in the article-

In response to Mr. Draper’s observance that Mr. Bush had nobody’s “shoulder to cry on,” the president said: “Of course I do, I’ve got God’s shoulder to cry on, and I cry a lot.” In what Mr. Draper interpreted as a reference to war casualties, Mr. Bush added, “I’ll bet I’ve shed more tears than you can count as president.”

Ahh, that explains the joking frat-boy humor and/or petulance in his press conferences.

Finally, the President discusses the consequential 2003 decision to disband the Iraqi army-

Mr. Bush acknowledged one major failing of the early occupation of Iraq when he said of disbanding the Saddam Hussein-era military, “The policy was to keep the army intact; didn’t happen.”

But when Mr. Draper pointed out that Mr. Bush’s former Iraq administrator, L. Paul Bremer III, had gone ahead and forced the army’s dissolution and then asked Mr. Bush how he reacted to that, Mr. Bush said, “Yeah, I can’t remember, I’m sure I said, ‘This is the policy, what happened?’ ” But, he added, “Again, Hadley’s got notes on all of this stuff,” referring to Stephen J. Hadley, his national security adviser.

The buck stops here, folks! I mean, Hadley's got notes. The 'Family Circus' ghost did it!

Mr. President, please do us a favor and retire early. Get bored, go down to the ranch. And leave this poor country alone.