Life After Dubya

“George W Bush is clearly enjoying himself. Alone on the stage, mic in hand, he tells a story about a moment earlier this year when he was walking his dog, Barney, around the Dallas suburb he now calls home. ‘I wanted to say hello to my neighbours,’ says Bush, ‘because I was worried we’d inconvenienced them when word was out that George Bush was moving where they lived. I hadn’t walked in a neighbourhood in eight years.’ He decided to go up to a neighbour and say hello, Bush tells us. But just as he goes to shake the neighbour’s hand, Bush realises that he still has a plastic poop bag covering his hand like a glove. The image of Dubya holding a poop-scoop mitt settles on the audience who have come to see him speak at a stadium in San Antonio, Texas. Then he launches into another anecdote – an old favourite about the time Laura asked him to go out and buy a battery from the local hardware store and someone asked whether anyone had ever told him he looked just like the former President. It happens all the time, he’d replied.”