Couple of folks wrote to ask what I thought of George W. Bush's speech/skit that preceded Stephen Colbert's the other night. I thought it was actually a clever idea. I suspect that it came about because someone at the White House said to someone else, "You know, Bush is at his worst when he's trying to be funny. If only we could bring in a stunt double for him to handle the comedy…"
Bush impersonator Steve Bridges did a good job. My mother, who has vision problems, said she couldn't tell looking at the TV which Bush was the real one. George W. probably deserves some credit for going along with the bit and doing some pretty self-deprecating material. I wouldn't have thought he had it in him.
It's tempting to read some subtext into a few of the lines. Bush has pretty well demonstrated that he doesn't think much of reporters, even the ones who report things his way, and I don't think it was untrue that he would rather have been somewhere else that evening. (Later, after Colbert, that seemed even more likely.) But as Freud should have said, sometimes a joke is just a joke.
Here's the video of the routine…