YOU CAN KEEP IT

WHAT THE PRESIDENT REALLY WANTED TO SAY

Much has been made of the President's demeanor in the first debate. Against a clearly unfair set of questions (Jim Lehrer: "Mr. Kerry, please tell us what would make you such a good president." "Mr. Bush, why are you such a liar?" Don't look it up. It's exaggeration for effect.), the President appeared testy, nasty, bored, and exasperated.

I'm not going to say that's not true. In fact, it's something I actually found refreshing. It's just what I would have felt like doing, if I were the president of the United States and some idiot Frenchman disguised as an American war hero decided he should tell me what to do.

And after giving it some thought, I think I know just why it came out that way. So, here, if you will indulge me (and you will, because you can't stop me; you can only reply) is my version of what the President was holding back but really, in his heart of hearts, wanted to say to John Flip-flop Kerry, Jim Demshill Lehrer, and the whole nation during the first debate:

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Bush, you have a two-minute closing statement.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Well, thank you for having me, Jim. I hope the nation has learned a lot about my opponent and myself tonight. I'd also like to thank the good people of Florida, because they've been through-- I'm sorry. I just can't-- (Sighs). Okay, look. I have to be honest with you, Jim, and with the American people. You may have noticed that I've been a little--well, maybe a little exasperated tonight. And it's not the flashing lights. My team likes those. And it's not even the biased questions you're throwing at me. I'm used to that.

(Turning to face Kerry): Senator Kerry, do you know what I spent my day doing? While you were getting your hair and your nails done? Do you know what I've been doing and thinking about while you were covering up your weird orange skin so you didn't scare the viewers? Do you?

I was all over this state, looking at the unbelievable damage those hurricanes have done to our people and property. I saw people whose houses are destroyed, people who haven't had electricity in weeks. I saw those kids your witch of a wife thinks should be going naked through the streets of Florida--I still don't know why she said that or what she meant.

Anyway, I, uh, oh, yeah--I looked at all this devastation, all this destruction, and I came back to the hotel room with my brother, Jeb, and I looked him in the eye. "Jeb," I said, "I'm the President of the United States, and I can't even make sure that those people have something to eat tonight. Do you realize that? It kills me to have to leave here and go play footsie with that met-er-o-sexual hack tonight. I just want to smack him around. It's times like these I almost wish I could have a drink, but I know that wouldn't even help."

(To the camera) I look at America and I see a lot of good news. A lot of good people helping their neighbors and living right and raising kids to love this country. But I also see a lot of pain. A lot of people are hurting. A lot of jobs were lost after 9/11. My opponent talks like I took all those jobs away from all those Americans. He and his friends act like I personally blew up the twin towers. They want to sit on the sidelines and laugh because I chose not to panic a bunch of schoolkids and stayed seven minutes to read a book about a goat. I suppose they'd prefer I sat in the Senate, or the Hamptons, reading Jean-Paul Sartre--yeah, I know who he is. I'm not a moron, you know.

Or maybe you don't, because Mr. Kerry's friends have made a big point of saying how stupid I am, how uneducated, how I'm not "intellectually curious." They get mad at me because I don't read the papers. Well, why should I read the papers? I'm the president of the United States! There's nothing in the paper I don't know first! The reporters spend half their time trying to find out what I already know, and the other half interviewing people who don't know the answers. I don't READ the New York Times because I'm IN the New York Times!

So, look. I'm going to level with you.

I didn't really know much about being president when this thing started. I just knew there was something in my soul, my spirit, that said I should try. I knew God had a plan, and I thought I was part of it. Then, when 9/11 happened, it seemed that was why He'd put me there. For such a time as this. And I did that job. I became the commander in chief. I was a uniter. I held widows (not the way the last president did--the decent, God-fearing American way). I encouraged first responders. I hugged little kids whose parents would never come home again.

And then the time came and we had to hit Afghanistan. And I knew what I had to do, and I did it. And once again I found myself the Mourner-in-Chief of the United States of America. I held people up. I prayed for them. They prayed for me. We wept together. And we rejoiced together that their loved ones had gone on to a better place for a noble cause.

And then every intel source in the world said Saddam has WMDs. Saddam is going to strike. Saddam is a crazy murdering tyrant. The people of Iraq are suffering. Saddam is shooting at our planes every single day. He's taking the oil-for-food money and buying solid-gold cars and ostentatious palaces while his people starve in the street and get raped and thrown in prison---(choking up)--and I said, "Not on my watch. This no-count rat isn't going to flout UN resolutions and murder people and plot to destroy the United States of America on MY watch. Not after 9/11. Not on your life. Lock and load. It's showtime."

And so, as my opponent likes to say, I "took us to war." A war Senator Kerry authorized and then didn't want to pay for. Didn't want to supply the troops, if he couldn't get his way on the economy to do it. Didn't care then whether folks had to have a bake sale to buy body armor--suddenly now he cares? Do you believe it? I don't.

But the worst part is that while I'm trying to run all this--win two wars, put down insurgencies, chase terrorists all over the world, deal with North Korea and Libya and Iran and Africa and Mexico, visit world leaders and international summits and meet with families of the dead and plan strategies for global trade and international police cooperation and African AIDS relief AND tax policy and health care, prescription drugs, unemployment, steel tarrifs, no-call lists, child pornography laws--I could go on.

While I'm doing ALL this--some nutbag named Moore is making a movie about what an international menace I am. Saddam Hussein cut people's hands off and cut their tongues out--and I'M supposed to be the bad guy? Some creep named Soros who I don't even think is an American, I don't know--is putting millions of dollars up to tell America and the troops that Iraq is Vietnam and we're going to lose and I'm the devil. This guy wants to make heroin legal--and I'M the devil? And the Democrats and my opponent are all over the country telling everyone I'm doing a lousy job and I don't care about them.

Well, you know what? He's half right. Most days, I'm proud to be the president of this great country. It's an honor and a privilege, and I love the people of America and the meaning of America.

But when folks like him start spouting off about how he'd do this different, and that different--and eventually EVERYTHING different--that's when he's right. I'm doing a lousy job.

Because when you look into the eyes of a woman whose husband or son isn’t coming home, and all you can do is pray and hug her, this is a lousy job.

And when you watch the stock market go up and down no matter what you do about it, this is a lousy job.

And when half the American people don't even understand that their very lives and families would be in terrible danger if we didn't have my Homeland Security and Defense Departments slaving away to keep them safe--didn't you people see 9/11? It was on tv--I don't know how you could have missed it! When half the American people are MAD at me for PROTECTING them--you're darn right, it's a lousy job!

And, Senator Kerry, if you think you can do better, if you really think that you can call up your pal Jacque and convince him to bring in troops, do it! In fact, if I win, I'll appoint you and Jimmy Carter as a special delegation--maybe with Jane Fonda and Bruce Springsteen or something--to go over there to France and summitryize all you like. See if you can get them in. Go ahead. I'll wait.

If you think you can get the terrorists to stop beheading people on the Internet and blowing things up, go ahead! Try your hand! I won't stop you.

I'm telling you, if you really think you can run a multi-billion dollar budget--and not just talk about appropriating the people's money, but actually managing it and deciding what to do about 80 million different issues with half your mail calling you names and wanting you dead and the other half asking for your wife's cookie recipe and how's your dog--if you think you can do this lousy job, well, you can HAVE it!

(To camera) And I want to talk to you undecideds right now. Get off the fence and make a decision. This is America, and you better figure out what your opinion is, or you're going to get run over by the train of history. Make a choice and stick with it. If you think Senator Kerry can do a better job after 20 years in the Senate without an important piece of legislation to his name--a divorced Catholic who says he thinks life begins at conception and then votes every time to kill it, a man who voted to go to war and not to fund the troops fighting it, who says he's against gay marriage but won't lift a finger to stop it, who voted against every important weapon we used to win the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and are now using to maintain the peace, who can't even debate me without spending half his day getting primped and primed and bronzed and waxed--if you think a man like that is fit to run this country, go ahead and vote for him.

But if you like your morals and your marriages straight, vote for me. If you want your soldiers to finish the job they started and bring Iraq and Afghanistan into the world of civilized nations, vote for me. If you follow the faith you claim to believe in, and you want the terrorists busy in some other country than this one, vote for me.

I personally don't care who you vote for. If God gives me this job again, I'll do the very best I can, because I love the American people, and the stakes are too high to do anything less. If that's not in the Plan, I'll go home to Crawford and love my wife and ride my horses and pray that the President is listening to God, just like the rest of you do every day. But I'm done with this debate. I'm not even staying to wave at people. I've been up all day, since early morning, and I've been doing my job.

So, if you'll excuse me, Mr. Lehrer, Mr. Kerry, people of America, I'll be leaving now. I'm going home with my wife now to NOT watch the CBS news. Good night.