Bush's Next Job

So he's the biggest disaster ever to hit this country, Bush still needs a job after his second term as president is over. I know he's been in semi-retirement since he took office anyway, and he does have that ranch, but can he really be content wielding an electric saw all day, every day, for the rest of his life? OK, so maybe he could. Still, even if Bush himself wanted to accomplish his mission by razing all of Crawford to the ground with that one saw, there are other forces in this country that won't allow the goose to stop laying eggs. Before you know it, some oil and construction company will smoke Bush out of his ranch, revive Darth Cheney, and rig some other election.

A bit far fetched?

Well, I remember a time, back in the year 2000, when many a Democrat in this country thought Bush would never make it to the White House. So hear me out:

I think we should find Bush a job before someone else does, and I have just the right position in mind. I think George W. Bush should be Iran's next president.

Don't laugh.

Right now, Bush is just about the most popular person in all of Iran. The mullahs love him; the people love him; the oil companies love him. For all I know, Karl Rove is already in Tehran designing campaign strategy while the rest of the world is busy talking about nuclear weapons and what not.

Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose authority supercedes that of all other clerics and officials, elected or not, takes his orders from a "higher power", i.e. God. So does Bush, but that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Iran's other mullahs, who have robbed and looted the country for the past three decades, regard Bush as their personal, private Messiah: he has destroyed their biggest enemy--Saddam--and delivered to them Iraq, not to mention a large percentage of the world's Muslim population.

The brave but struggling opposition in Iran loves Bush because they still believe the cow-boy talk about how he's going to bring down the regime. Iranian exiles all over the world love him (well, most of them do, anyway) because he had promised he wouldn't negotiate or even enter talks with the mullahs. In fact, during the last presidential elections, those of us Iranian-Americans who supported Kerry were accused of being traitors to the motherland, because Kerry had said he would hold talks with the mullahs about their nuclear program. And it doesn't matter, either, that Bush has recently changed his tune about talking to the mullahs: Bush may be a liar, but at least he's Republican. As far as the exiles are concerned, it was a Democrat--Carter--who lost Iran. But I'm digressing.

Like the mullahs, Bush and his people know how to pretend they've won an election. They know how to repeat the same lie until it sounds like the truth, and they even know how to stay the course even after the lies have been exposed. Most importantly, Bush, like the mullahs, knows how to rally the troops, energize the base, create a united front against the opposition. Khomeini used the battle against the Great Satan as his rallying cry. Ahmadinejad uses Isreal, the Jews, and the Holocaust. Bush uses Bin Laden, Saddam, or, in leaner times, gay marriage.

Trust me on this: whatever the mullahs have done in Iran, Bush can do better.