W: Memoirs, Baseballs, and Whatnot

A couple of weeks ago, I had the great pleasure of watching Will Ferrell's one-man Broadway show, You're Welcome, America: A Final Night with George W. Bush.

It was absolutely wonderful.

Delightfully and unexpectedly raunchy, Ferrell retired his beloved caricature by unloading every bad thought or misstep that one who hated Bush as sincerely as Ferrell does (he has stated publicly that, despite a tradition as such, he would not want to ever meet the person he so famously portrayed on SNL) could ever conjure, guns-blazing. It may be the last we see of the truly hilarious depiction of No. 43.

For awhile, it should be the last we see of any depiction, real or imagined, of George W. Bush.

In the UFW archives, I've rehashed my optimist's guide to the Bush Legacy. It's not pretty, un-spectacularly amounting to a "nowhere-to-go-but-up" scenario. I stand by it. The bar is set pretty low, anyway.

But now I hear about his 2010 memoirs about the decisions he made while in office, and the circumstances as he interpreted them during that decision-making process. That was a couple of weeks ago. Today, ESPN tells me that he's throwing out the first pitch for the first game of the Texas Rangers this season.

Bush would do well to sit back and let the smoke thin out a little longer than a few months than to bust back onto the national spotlight.

Cheny is sticking his nose into the limelight, to the tune of thunderous boos and hisses, even from Republicans.

There will come a time when his voice may want to be heard. Not by everyone, mind you, but by some. But for right now, even the GOP is trying to figure out how to move on Bush free.

Presidents are often guided by precedents, and skewing from those boundaries can often lead to hot water. One such precedent is to not speak ill of another President while they're in office, even if they're of a different party. You never heard that much from Bill Clinton about W, until he began campaigning for his wife, in which case he subscribed to the obligatory shackling of Bush to the GOP at large. That criticism is often taken poorly, which is why Jimmy Carter and Clinton aren't the best of buddies.

Another such precedent, the precedent for a President to fade into the background for awhile, ought to be heeded more actively by W. There's not a lot of good, if any at all, that can come from this.

Aside, of course, from a Disney-esque freak accident that enables the President from tossing 103 mph fastballs in his opening day pitching. That'd be noteworthy. But otherwise, let's just save it.