A recent news report stated that President George W. Bush has instructed his staff to take a refresher course in ethics after doubts about the integrity of the Bush Administration began appearing with greater and greater regularity in the press and polls. Not that W reads any of the press or pays any attention to the polls, of course.
Well, to our amazement, we were able to place a video cam inside the room where the ethics training took place.
The course was taught by President Bush himself.
Here is a transcript:
Bush: Thank you for such a touching opening prayer Karl. Didn’t know you could speak in tongues? Okay…what’s that? No, no, no, Karl, I am not accusing you of speaking with a forked tongue. Don’t be so hypersensitive my dear little Turdblossom. And yes, to answer your plea, sweet Jesus is going to come to your rescue. I’ve been talkin’ to people, got it on very good authority and no, it ain’t from one of them Screwball or Curveball wackos Wolfowitz and Perle loved to bring around. Okay, now, thanks to ya all for comin’ today. Let’s get started. There are only two rules you all need to learn to be integritable. What is the first?
Harriet Miers: Ay say, ay juuuust loooove the way you say integrity Mr. President. You say i-n-t-e-g-r-i-t-y the best of any president we ever had. You are tops in my book!
Bush: Harriet, didn’t I tell you to keep your scatty…scatto…scatologizing just between you and me? And don’t ever call me Ozzie again.
Dick Cheney raises his hand.
Bush: Yes, see, my president of vice knows the answer. See why I picked ’em? See! I did good, didn’t I?
(chorus of voices in the room in unison): “you’se good Mr. President.”
Bush: What’s the answer Dick?
Cheney: The first rule of integrity that I have always lived by is this–don’t get caught.
Rove (interrupting): But Mr. President, didn’t the vice-president get caught telling Patrick Leahy to perform a very difficult anatomical act?
Cheney: Mr. President, that was really nothing. Mr. Leahy is, in fact, quite hard of hearing, and I was just responding to what I thought was his expression of pain from his ass being chapped. Really, it was just some benign medical advice that I offered – go tuck yourself. Lynne and I, we tuck all the time and it’s quite refreshing. In fact, every Tuesday is Tuck’s Night at our house. Tuck’s are wonderful…
Bush: (cutting in) Enough Dick, why don’t you go off and rewrite some intelligence or somethin’? You two (points to Cheney and Rove), you’se giving me flashbacks of Jenna and Barbara battlin’. Anyone who works for me knows that the first rule of integrity is attack, attack, attack. Be like a pit on a bull.
(chorus of voices in the room in unison): Yes sir.
Bush: Now, how does one attack? Here’s my best example: accuse your opponent of flag desecratin’. Say that he ran into a burning building to…to…to rescue some illegal immigrants, no, make ’em illegal Muslim immigrants, and the American flag pin on his jacket melted due to the intense heat. When he tries to explain the circumstances, you ridicule him for not thinking about removin’ the flag pin ahead of time. Say the nation can’t afford to have such a person in an important office. Yeah, that’s the ticket. Betcha even Karl can’t top that!
Rove: I was pretty good with that hint of pedophilia against that judge in Youth Court in Alabama. Yessirree. Was I on my game then or what?
Bush: Okay. Mr. Big Britches. I call you and raise you this: say you’re opponent has a chestful of medals from being stupid enough to actually go off and fight in a war. The minute he trots out them shiny ribbons, you just say shucks and ask what was he thinkin’ when he led his fellow soldiers into getting all shot up? Was it right to have soldiers die and be gruesomely maimed for him to earn such so-called honors?
Rove: Well, I made sure that people knew Ann Richards liked women a whole lot. I mean one whole heckuva lot. Mucho liko, if you know what I mean.
Bush: Why does that name sound familiar…oh yeah, right, Texas Governor…you did that Karl?
Rove: Yesiree Mr. President. Thought it up myself.
Bush: Doggone, I thought I won because them Texans liked me. That they reeeaaallly liked me. (eyes begin to moisten)
Donald Rumsfeld: (jumping in) Mr. President, there are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.
Bush: (staring at Rumsfeld) Criminy, Putin in Russian is more understandable than you. Jeez, anyway, where were we…yes, the second and final rule of integrity is use money, power, influence and family name to make anything incriminating disappear.
Alberto Gonzales: Boss, is that similar to when we rendition people to our ‘fledgling democracy brethren’ for some, ahem, R&R?
Bush: C’mon my main Mexican compadre, you know as well as I do that we don’t do torture. Have you ever seen me yank on someone’s johnson? Have ya? Have ya? I’m not a dogleash kinda guy. Never have been. Sheesh, just ask Laura. ‘Berto, there is Swedish massage and then there is (makes quotation marks with hands) Egyptian massage. We just choose Egyptian. We have a choice, that’s one of the great things ’bout America, freedom to choose. What we do is outsource. Outsourcin’s good, it lifts up both countries.
Scott McClellan: Should I lead my next White Press press briefing about the economicstrengthening, sort of like the ties that bind, of fiscal relations with Egypt?
Bush: Now you’re making me get all peevy. I never said I had physical relations with Egypt. Don’t you go accusin’ me of that. That was the previous guy, not me.
Condi Rice: (rushing into the meeting) Sorry I am late Mr. President but Syria is seeking to import small, thin aluminum baseball bats and you know what that means.
Bush: Yes, I do.
Rice: We have to act Mr. President.
Bush: Of course, gotta move on it before them deadly clouds of mushroom appear. Okay, yous all integritized. Class dismissed.
