Can We Go Back to 2000 and Have a Do-Over?

The President's press conference was on the radio. Pete isn't teaching today because it's a Jewish holiday, and there are no classes. Pete said, "Listen to his voice. It sounds like he's drunk or something." We listened together. The President's voice is near the top of a very long list of things about him I can't stand. He seems to have two tones of voice--one smug and snickering (that seems to be the one that most impersonators go for), and the other (much more common, in my perception) a perpetually aggrieved-yet-defensive whine, as if continually responding to invisible enemies (a kind of "how many times do I have to try to talk sense to you people about this" tone) regardless of context. But Pete was right. The President definitely sounded a bit off. Pete put his finger on it first: "He sounds depressed."

He really did. His annoying, whiny voice sounded flat and heavy, weighed down by those oh-so-familiar bags of lead. Depression. And for the first time, I actually felt a little flicker of human compassion for the guy. Is it finally starting to dawn on him, as a whole lot of shit is hitting a whole lot of fans (Iraq, FEMA, DeLay, oil prices, plunging polls...), that he's really not up to this, and truthfully never has been?

Ah, probably not, I guess. But still. Still, one doesn't envy the guy. You can blame him, you can dislike him (lord knows), but somehow there's no glee in watching him have to lie in the foul, foul bed he's made. Of course, he's made it for all of us, which makes it worse by a factor of approximately 294 million.

Bleah.