Bush

Allen Abel on the rare meeting of five living presidents, and whether the office will survive the era of President Trump

Been following the headlines? Prove it.

By now you’ve heard about how, during George Bush’s recent visit to Baghdad an Iraqi journalist named Muntader al-Zaidi winged his shoes at the US President, yelling “This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog!”. Maybe you’ve seen the video. And maybe you heard about how Mr. al-Zaidi is now a folk hero across the muslim world.

Yes, I know everybody already made this reference the moment that shoe came flying at President Bush. The question is, how many talk shows will feature this clip tonight? I’m guessing more than one, at least. Probably not Leno.

GWB did a nice John Crouton impression ce soir, taking his case for a bailout straight to the people earlier this evening, apparently because he felt that situation has reached a critical stage.

In the money: Who wins when President Bush doles out $168 billion to stimulate the American economy? Pornographers, it turns out. AIMRCo, a market research company focused on the adult online industry, says many porn websites have aroused interest from new customers since the checks first went out in mid-May. Some sites have experienced a 20-30 per cent growth in membership rates. A spokeswoman for one site said they polled new customers and found one-third were using Bush bucks to buy smut. “Getting more people to buy porn was probably the last thing Bush had on his mind when he came up with his ‘stimulus package,’ but we’ll take it.”