Running cover for Bush

EVEN AS we await the few moments left until George Bush renditions himself back to Texas, his friends in the administration are doing their damnedest to give him cover while they think of odd things to say - lies, really - about his legacy.  I was particularly astonished that he was said to have read more books than a Doubleday editor, including in the past year the works of Albert Camus.  As one who once took a study course in, of all things, existentialism, I can tell you that Camus doesn't always come through that clearly on first reading, especially so when you are someone who is supposed to be preoccupied with workaday matters like... oh, rising unemployment and closed retail enterprises across the spectrum.  One wonders why his apologists didn't advance  such books as Treasure Island or Wizard of Oz as his night-table reading staples.   His entire cabinet could relate to them and grade the president accordingly.  Besides, being a defiant Frenchman, Camus never regarded himself as an existentialist, although most other literary people do.   But that's another story.

Meantime, regarding the legacy, we are told to be patient in a waiting  game until the truth is fully known about his historic  accomplishments. That tactic recalls the six-month leaps of faith "until we hear from General Petraeus" - now a shopworn quaint phrase no longer useful for the Bushies' political survival.  Karl Rove, Dana Perino, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney are all huddling on their own two yard line to throw a 98-yard touchdown pass that would still leave the game well out of reach for them.  So what else is new?   This is a team that has been in denial for so long that they don't recognize the benefit of simply cutting and running  while leaving a toppling world to their successors.  Won't happen.  Not with this gang.  Not with the legacy thing.  It's their last remaining false hope.