Pop. As in snap, crackle and…Pop. As in music, we’re talkin’ about…Pop. As in soda, an all-American drink, fit for a President…Pop. As in father, who was also First Citizen of the United States of America…Pop. As in the sound of balloons bursting, going... Pop. Pop. Pop. As in the sound of a President losing it in public. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.

It was one of the most genuinely surreal moments I’ve seen on television. It was also one of the scariest. It came in the middle of a press conference being given by the US President, George W.Bush. He was asked had mistakes been made in the process of pursuing the war in Iraq. It was an innocuous question that even the biggest political dullard in the class could have rattled on in answer to, until everyone got dog tired and just plain fell asleep. Instead…
The President’s face screwed up and he looked lost. He said nothing for an eerie amount of time. Indeed, he looked dazed and confused for so long it just wasn’t true. And then he admitted that he’d love it if something were to pop into his head right now, so that he could answer the question. But nothing was popping. What with the pressure of the situation and all of that, he added. But if anything did – pop, that is, into his head – he’d get right back to the reporter in question just as soon as it did.
The word ‘pop’ hung there like a sentence. And the terrible thought that this was the best that the man who has his hand on the button could come up with. The pressure of doing a press conference was so too much for him, he was too pooped to pop…

There are people out there who take this guy seriously as the leader of the free world. Well, after this, I have to admit that I’ll be taking him very seriously indeed. You can discuss politics and policies all you like, and in that context, for sure, there are innumerable reasons for thinking that George Bush is a dangerous fuck. But the sheer incompetence and slow-wittedness of the man has never been quite so graphically evident.
Ask him a simple question and you get… no answer. A failure to pop causes a malfunction. Quick, call the repairman.
It wasn’t just once that he was stuck for words during the press conference either. And some of the answers that he did give were nothing short of astonishing in their unique mix of arrogance and idiocy. Why had the US invaded Iraq? Because, he told reporters, America would be “a safer place” as a result. The thought apparently didn’t strike him that, even if this was the real reason, it would be better to try at least to continue to dress the war up in a humanitarian light, to pretend that US was pursuing some higher purpose or other.
But, no. Too stupid. Instead, the President of the United States admitted that the US had invaded Iraq out of naked self interest – as if that should and would be just fine with everyone. Including, of course, the relatives of the thousands of dead Iraqi civilians, killed by US forces in the course of what has become a catastrophic Middle Eastern misadventure.
He was, in any event, doubly making a fool of himself, in that opinion polls confirmed last week that the majority of Americans have come to the obvious conclusion that far from making the US a safer place, the war in Iraq – and by the way, the President’s stance on the Israeli question – has increased the danger of terrorist attack in the US significantly.
The extent to which some Americans are capable of deluding themselves, meanwhile, was reflected in the report the following day in the New York Daily News which described the President’s performance at the press conference as that of an “unwavering, resolute, steadfast and far-seeing president.”
The New York Times, meanwhile, called it as it was. They described his performance as “distressingly rambling and unfocussed.” I’d put the emphasis on distressing. Add the fact that Bush looked almost tearful at times and you are left with the impression of a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

The press conference came during a week in which Bush effectively tore up the Road Map to peace in Palestine by doing a sneaky deal with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, which was driven solely by the desire to secure what might prove to be vital extra votes from the Jewish community in the Presidential election in November, in key marginal states, Florida and Ohio. The deal gives Sharon’s plan to preserve the position of the 200,000 Jewish settlers in Palestinian lands on the West Bank the sanction of the US – and in the process has destroyed any possibility of establishing trust with the Palestinian people and their representatives.
• It came during a week in which US forces carried out what effectively amounted to revenge mass murders of Iraqi citizens in Fallujah, designed to make someone, anyone, pay for the slaughter in the city of four American security personnel – described in some independent press reports as mercenaries, hired to protect the US administrator Paul Bremer. Those killings were utterly repugnant, but the slaughter that followed was no less so, making it clear that the US bows to no one in the barbarism stakes.
• It came during a week when, by general consensus, the US had demonstrated just how thoroughly it misunderstands the dynamics of Arab and Muslim hostility, in both Iraq and Palestine, effectively provoking inevitable murderous reaction – sooner or later – from Muslim militants in either place or both, and far beyond the borders of those countries as well.
• It came during a week when evidence of the dereliction of the Bush administration in relation to the threat of terrorism pre-September 11 came ever more starkly into focus.
• It came during a week in which it became increasingly clear that the Bush administration itself is beginning to come undone over the war on Iraq, with Colin Powell apparently describing vice-President Dick Cheney as having an unhealthy fixation with Iraq and blaming him for the rush to war, during briefings given to Bob Woordward for his book Plan Of Attack.
• In summary, and I hope it doesn’t sound like an overstatement to you, it came during a week when the depth to which we are in the hands of a cabal of ruthless, cynical, lying, murderous, greedy, blinkered, selfish and dangerous motherfuckers became clearer than ever before.
Roll on November and the opportunity for decent and intelligent Americans to flush the monsters out of office. I’m beginning to believe that it just might happen. Even if the answer to that question does finally pop into George W. Bush’s head.
“Going into Iraq in the first place…”