Bush is my brother-in-law, The Shlub
Bush is like that loser brother-in-law that almost everybody has.
- - - - - - - - - -
by Anon

CONFESS, I'm something of a conservative. I was listening to some liberals rant about Bush the other day and they kept calling him "the shrub" like they just thought it up. Har Har. Whatever. Here's what his nickname should be though: The Shlub. You know what a shlub is right? It's yiddish for the poor guy who can't get a break. He's the guy who can't win for losin'. Partly honest bad luck, partly because he's a chronic screw-up. In other words, he's my brother-in-law.

Let me tell you about my brother-in-law Randy: he's the classic shlub. Nobody knows how he holds down a job, but we think he's just likable enough not to get fired, so they keep bumping him from one department to the next. Every time we see him, whether it's at a barbeque or down at the bar on Fridays he's got some new tale of woe to tell us about his latest disaster. The stories are pretty funny actually, the way he tells them, so I always buy him a beer and listen. Plus they make me think my problems ain't so bad. You really get him going and he'll go all the way back to his navy days. I think he was this close to getting kicked out or thrown overboard for four years running. Keeps us in stitches.

Don't know why my sister's married to Randy, but that's her problem. I like the guy, I really do. And I've almost gotten over the time all the guys pitched in some cash to help him start that vending machine company. Never Again! But would I want this guy in charge of my company? Hell No!

Which brings me to the Shlub, by which I mean George W Bush. The only difference between him and Randy is that Daddy Bush was a billionaire senator. So they get him into Yale and he spends the whole time partying. Then they pull him into the National Guard instead of Vietnam . Who knows if he was really AWOL or not, or got grounded for failing a drug test; whatever. What's pretty clear though is that he didn't show up real regular, and his CO's didn't much care. Just like when I was in the Army, the screwups could get away with a whole lot more than the rest of us because the less the officers had to deal with those guys, the better . So the Shlub just kind of gets by, as always.

Next the Shlub goes into business. More like a bunch of attempts at business with some help from the family. Harken Energy, "Ar-Busto" and the rest. Remember the one where they got him on the board, but finally let him go because all he did was sit around and tell dirty jokes? Yep, that's just what Randy would do too. About the only thing that went OK was being owner of the Texas Rangers, 'cause you just have to let the pros take care of things for you. But even then they trade away Sammy Sosa just before his record-breaking homer season. That's the luck of the Shlub for you right there. My buddies down there tell me Governor of Texas was pretty much the same deal.

Well I've been voting Republican since Reagan, so I voted for the guy because I figured he's have good people running things for him, like with the Rangers, you know? That was before I figured out he and Randy got poured out the same mold. When I figured it out was when I saw him talking about how he never planned to run a deficit unless there was a war, or a recession or national emergency, "And who knew I'd hit the Trifecta?" Yup -- the bad luck Trifecta. That's my brother-in-law! I thought. Even got the same gestures, hands up to his chest, making a face while he says "It's not my fault -- that's just what happened, or it's that guy over there" Gets old after a while. And those bad-luck Trifectas seem to follow those guys around. For Bush it's not just the economy and the jobs and 9/11, you got the Space Shuttle disaster, the weather, the screwed-up war in Iraq (God bless those kids over there, though!) and who knows what's next, Mad Cow Disease? Maybe none of that's really his fault; I guess he's just jinxed. But who cares?

Now I like the guy I really do. Let him come up here some time from Texas and I'll buy him a beer along with Randy. But you want to know am I gonna vote for the guy to run the whole country in November? Let me put it this way: I'd sooner go to work for my brother-in-law.