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Volume CCXXXVI, Number 150 December 2, 2006 

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Exit strategy:

BUSH ADVISER
IS NEXT TO GO

By Henry Cabot Lodge
Diplomatic Correspondent

WASHINGTON, D.C. – With the news from Iraq going from bad to worse and some of the loudest neoconservative gasbags now blaming him for the debacle, George Bush is reportedly ready to dismiss another key Administration player in a last-ditch effort to pretend to [Surely, persuade? – Ed.] the American people that he is willing to consider changes to his march-or-die Iraq policy.

The President had hoped that Donald Rumsfeld's defenestration would suffice to sate the public clamor for a scapegoat. Although the bumptious, addled Defense Secretary was one of the most important strategists behind the ill-fated Iraq war, in fact the critical player, whose possible resignation is now providing grist for the Washington rumor mill, was not at the Pentagon.

Rather, this key adviser – the driving factor behind George Bush's ruinous decision to foment an unnecessary war with Saddam Hussein in the absence of any evidence that the existing UN sanctions regime had failed to constrain him – could be found most days at the White House.

With Bush's popularity and credibility continuing to plunge uncontrollably "into the toilet," in the words of Administration insiders, these well-placed wipers [Surely, officials? – Ed.] have told the Spy exclusively that Bush may soon announce that he has accepted the resignation of what some have called "the Decider's Decider:" Bush's gut.

The upheaval caused by such a resignation would spew far and wide. The President has frequently and publicly praised his digestive organs and reminded the public repeatedly of the critical role they play in his decisionmaking process.

In better times, Bush credited his alimentary system with advising him to overthrow Saddam Hussein and assuring the President that the Iraqi despot had secreted vast quantities of weapons of mass destruction for distribution to al-Qaeda terrorists.

Bush also credited his gut with fixing force levels in Iraq well below the numbers recommended by his generals and with the expectation that American troops would be greeted as liberators when they installed corrupt exile Ahmad Chalabi as the American viceroy in Baghdad.

However, with Iraq turning into the normal output of the digestive process, Bush is planning to force his gut to resign its position as chief adviser and decision-maker. "It's a last ditch effort by the President to persuade the American people that he has eliminated the advisers who have failed to bring about a successful outcome," explained dapper White house funnyman Josh Bolten. "Think of it as an enema of the policy-making process," Bolten quipped.

With the pending resignation of Bush's gut, the capital's rumor mill is producing vast quantities of speculation as to the organ system most likely to take over the many tasks formerly performed by Bush's vitals. While some speculate that Bush's brain, better known as Karl Rove, will get the nod, others cite possible presidential pique over Rove's unsuccessful midterm election strategy of scaring voters a third time with the twin specters of terrorism and gay marriage.

Sources close to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice have raised the possibility that Bush's balls may be brought in to replace the disgraced gut. Said one senior official in a position to know: "You've got to have balls of brass to pass off a lazy, nasty drug-addled slacker as a statesman, patriot and leader. And that's just what George did."

Bush's sensory organs have been all but ruled out in the wake of their inability to smell, see or hear last month's electoral wipeout and the utter collapse of the Iraqi enterprise into a merciless and irresoluble civil war.

A few long-time Washington hands whisper that George Bush may, in the waning days of his presidency, turn away from his disastrous reliance on his viscera or other organs and instead embrace a policymaking process based on careful analysis of facts and policy options by experienced, savvy officials representing diverse points of view.

When that possibility was run by Bolten, the chief of staff only chortled and said, "Whatever Jim Baker's smoking, I'd like some."