The President of War

By Elizabeth Gerteiny

THE PRESIDENT OF WAR is a brilliant, concise review of the Bush presidency.
Everyone should read this book to glimpse, step by step, the attempts of the war president to destroy the traditional values that had exemplified the hopes and dreams of America. Ms. Gerteinys prose stirs your mind; her poetry touches your heart. Its easy to forget some of the nuances that we have trudged through during the past 8 years.
This book brings them to light.
(W. Leon Smith, Publisher, The Lone Star Iconoclast)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 29, 2009
• ISBN: 9781477166628

Elizabeth Gerteiny

ELIZABETH GERTEINY grew up in Scarsdale, New York. She has served on the editorial staffs Of New Story Magazine, The Paris Review and Poet Lore. Most of the verses in this book have appeared on her website, www.bushandcompany.org . Her book, SWEET MY SONG, Nine Centuries of French Love Poems in Translation, is a work in progress. She lives in Connecticut with her Family, two dogs and three cats. Jacket illustrated by Ben Angotti, [e-mail] Photo of the author as a Girl Scout by R.E, Leppert Jr. Recent photo by A.G.G.

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Copyright © 2009 by Elizabeth Gerteiny.

Library of Congress Control Number:      2009903025

ISBN:         Hardcover                              978-1-4415-2471-3

                  Softcover                                978-1-4415-2470-6

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

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CONTENTS

Preface

Commander George Stood on the Deck

To Be a Wartime Profiteer

When George Went Off to See the Queen

Yes, Forty Years Seem Quite a Lot

I Went to War with Scant Dissent

Mr. O’Dell, Oh, Mr. O’Dell!

What’s Jeff Gannon’s Avocation

One Can’t Help Wondering Who’s to Blame

The President

I Will Not Take the Blame

A Proven Loyalist Is She

When That Guy Wilson

Who Will Be

Spying, Lying, Hawking Fear

Hunting Quail That Isn’t Feral

Hu Came to Washington DC

The President Has Got His Bump

Fabled Scribbling Bachelor James

How Lucky 9/11 Was for Mr. B!

The Bush/Blair Twins, That Funny Pair

The President Says We’re Safer Now Because of Him

Now Rumor Has It, Mr. B

The President Lumps All Evildoers into One

The President Got Another Bump

The Press Guy Asked, What Did Iraq

Our Leaders Thought to Shift Their Tack

What Heinous Plot Could Be Discovered

Does It Seem a Bit Unmanly?

Decider George Made Up His Mind

I Didn’t Know I’d Miss You, Scott

Tony, Tony, What a Phony

Où Sont les Neiges d’Antan?

The Bush Team Are Obsessed with Wielding Power

So Many Questions Left Unanswered Need Addressing

Osama’s Head Is in a Box

Seems Poppy Bush Could Take No More

On Weekends at Their Neighboring Estates

Alas, Poor Jeb, That Other Son

Junior Bush and Tony Blair

May George and Karl and Don and Dick

The Pardon’s Off, the Trial’s On

Hamilton and Baker and the Rest

Scooter’s Trial Is in Full Swing

Scooter Libby Took the Fall

1600 Troops Are Leaving

You Were a Much-Admired Man

A Pardon May Be on the Way

All Those Expressions Used Today

Hopeful Romney Hoped to Show

George Tenet Warned amid Protest

There’s Someone Else Who Can’t Recall

Embarrassing in the Extreme

Despite the Words of David Kay

Hillary’s No Angel, Don’t Tell Me

By the Raging Rio Grande

That Robert Gates Is Agonized Is Clear

Picture Perfect, Sure He’ll Be

It’s No Surprise the President’s Appointee

What If Pooty Putin’s Soul

The Question Is, Who’ll Take the Blame

Fred Thompson, Hey, Are You the One

Powerful Pat Leahy Sternly Warns

What Does Rummy Do All Day

So Reasonable, So Dignified

Disarming, Karl’s Jolly Face

Pretty Poppies, Red and White

Do You Have to Look Like That?

Will You Turn That Cell Off, Rudy?

How Nicely Those Rivals Contest

I Can’t Help Thinking, What If All

The Surge Is Working! Cries McCain

Stupid, Don’t You Know It’s Not

How Can George Be So Content

The Man Our George Calls Pooty Poot

Five Years before Anniversary Five

We’d Like to Like Our President

The Russians Have a New PM

I’ll Give Up Golf, the President Said

Upon This Cursed and Tainted Land

An Edgy Bush, a Cool Brown

Mr. McCain, You’re in a Spot

The Powers That Be Were Oh, So Sad

So Many Documents Lie Hidden

In Congress Was an Empty Seat

That They Were Pawns, Both Pat and Jess

Just What Kind of Fool Are You?

Sarah’s Goal Is Very Plain

This Is, My Friends, Just Where It’s At

Ms. Palin Has Her Own Campaign

Sarah, Sarah, Don’t You Get It?

That Old Lame-Duck Vice President

Three Auto Chiefs, Each in His Jet

The President’s in a Pardon Mode

Where Danger Threatens Soil and Air

One Piece of Postelection News

The General, Once Somewhat Disgraced

A Journalist in Baghdad Threw

I Made Tough Choices to Ensure

The President Will Leave Us Soon

Ghostly Faces, Haunted Eyes

Afterword

Bibliography

To Alfred Gerteiny,

Cynthia, Celia

and

Frederick

You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you.

—Oliver Cromwell, 1599-1658

[To the British parliament in 1653]

Sir, what (kind of government) have you given us?

A republic, if you can keep it.

—Benjamin Franklin, 1706-1790

Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.

—Lord Acton, 1834-1902

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.

—Mark Twain, 1835-1910

Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.

—attributed to Joseph Stalin, 1879-1953

When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross.

—Sinclair Lewis, 1885-1951

To impose arbitrarily a western culture on an ancient people in the Middle East is a route to folly and tragedy.

—Lawrence of Arabia, T. E Lawrence, 1888-1935

[One of the most knowledgeable Westerners about the Middle East and its people, he traveled extensively through the region, sometimes on foot. He learned about their culture firsthand as well as their language and dialects and, dressed in Arabian garb, lived with them.]

I can tell you this: If I’m ever in a position to call the shots, I’m not going to rush to send somebody else’s kids into a war.

I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the identity of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors.

A government that remembers that the people are its master is a good and needed thing.

—George H. W. Bush, 1924-

The surge is prolonging instability, not creating the conditions for success.

The challenge we face today is not how to win in Iraq; it is how to recover from a strategic mistake: invading Iraq in the first place.

The Iraq war is the worst strategic mistake in the history of the United States and draws a parallel to the Vietnam War. The US strategy in Iraq, as in Vietnam, has served almost exclusively in the interest of our enemies.

—William Odom, 1932-2008

. . . without leadership, command is a hollow experience, a vacuum often filled with mistrust and arrogance.

—Eric Shinseki, 1942-

Diplomacy is not defeat.

—Chuck Hagel, 1946-

Iraq will never be a democracy. Democracy simply runs counter to the powerful tribal and religious fault lines of Iraqi society. Partitioning of the Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis might work, not democracy as we know it.

—John Batiste, 1953-

DO NOT READ THIS BOOK. It’s treasonous and threatens national security. If you buy it, bring it home in an unmarked paper bag. Then forget what you read. Protect yourself. You’re being watched.

From a secret, undisclosed location:

Former Vice President Dick Cheney

"Passionate veneration of the democratic principles of justice and equality fan the creative flames that drive Elizabeth Gerteiny. This fearless, principled woman produces incisive poetry filled with style, wit, grace and humor that shines a searing spotlight on the politics and players who were ravaging America. The President of War belongs on your list of required reading. This volume of purposeful poetry is aimed at people who