A man and his rug

May 8, 2006

Before the [tag]president[/tag]’s weekend interview with Kai Diekmann of the “pro-Bush, breast-baring German tabloid newspaper, [tag]Bild[/tag],” began, the president wanted to talk about … his rug.

Bush: Have you ever been in the [tag]Oval Office[/tag] before?

Q: Once, a long time ago —

[tag]Bush[/tag]: I’ll give you a quick tour before our interview. So, the first thing that a President does, which I didn’t realize, was pick a [tag]rug[/tag]. I have no idea about rugs. And so in this job you’ve got to delegate. The American President is in a position where there’s just unbelievable complexities to the job — Darfur, Iran — a whole lot of issues. So I delegated the decision about the rug to my wife.

The second thing a President has got to do is have a strategic mind. In order to be successful, in my judgment, as the President, you’ve got to constantly think strategically. And so I said to her, you pick out the colors, you be the tactical person, but I want it to say “[tag]optimistic person[/tag].” That’s all I wanted it to say. Here is the result. Isn’t it beautiful?

Q: Yes, it is very beautiful.

Bush: There’s a sense of optimism when you come in here.

First, Bush really seems fixated on that rug. Second, I still don’t understand how a rug can say “optimistic person.”

It’s optimistic because when he falls down drunk he’s less likely to break something.

  • Objects that spend a lot of time with their owners acquire a pyshic aura. Thus anything of Hilter’s would doubtlessly give one a creepy feeling of evil.

    Fortunately, we probably don’t have to burn this rug after we impeach Boy George II, as he spends practically NO TIME in the oval office.

    [very tongue in cheek]

  • I could swear I have read this before. Maybe this is Bush’s standard “humorous” way of starting interviews in the Oval Office.

  • a President has got to do is have a strategic mind

    Am I the only person that finds that funny?

  • Deja Rug all over again. Maybe it’s a self fulfilling sort of thing. If Shruby stands on the rug while he says the war is going fine and Rummy’s doing fine and the deficit is no big deal, then it becomes an optimistic rug. Or the dumbest rug in the land. That rug should find another office. It’s giving optimism a bad name.

  • Is there some religioous or biblical parable about a rug or something similar?

  • Maybe that’s where he sweeps all the inconvenient facts that reality confronts him with. Which would explain why it’s an “optimistic” rug.

    More seriously, isn’t there something very weird about a president who uses a rug to belabor the obvious about his job? It’s as if he’s so uncomfortable and aware of his incompetence that he grasps at the flimsiest straw to make the opposite case.

    I’d almost feel sorry for the man if his presidency wasn’t such an unmitigated disaster.

  • Along with the “strategic mind” thing, I was chuckling over how our Dear Decider needed to split off the tactical aspects of making a decision about his rug and delegate them to his wife. I had heard him say how hard he worked at his job, but I’d never before appreciated how inhumanely difficult it must be. Delegating is hard work, but someone has to do it, and thank goodness he’s man enough for the job!

    If the poor man spent more time planning for a rug than for Iraq, that could explain many things.

    Incidentally, when one agonizes over whether the rug should be oriented to face the president at his desk or the visitor entering the office, is that strategy or tactics?

  • s there some religioous or biblical parable about a rug or something similar?
    bubba

    I think it’s just that the rug REALLY ties the room together.

    /Lebowski

  • Funny, in this exchange, it seems to work, though. The Q seems to be A’ing more than Q’ing.

    I guess the Germans have the same problems as us. Qs not Q’ing, but doing BN’ing a plenty.

  • Wow. “…there’s just unbelievable complexities to the job…” Was he unaware of that before taking office? I remember him saying something way back during the first hundred days or so about how “it’s amazing how the job follows you around” or something like that. Yeah, Chimpy, it’s a little different than Frat Boy Party Organizer. How do these reporters keep a straight face?

    And did he mention Darfur? I’d be really interested to know exactly how many nanoseconds the boy king has spent thinking about Darfur.

    The rug obsession is creepily interesting, isnt’ it?

  • When you think “rug” think “toupee” and then you can see how it leads to optimism. Now if only someone can figure out how to cover up the administrations embarassing bald spots…

  • Hey, it’s not Bush’s fault that he misread the Rove memo about projecting rugged individualism.

  • From the 3/7 WP story:
    Nothing says power like the Oval Office. The paintings of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. The bust of Dwight D. Eisenhower. The desk used by both Roosevelts.

    And then there’s the rug. Don’t forget the rug. President Bush never does.

    For whatever reason, Bush seems fixated on his rug. Virtually all visitors to the Oval Office find him regaling them about how it was chosen and what it represents. Turns out, he always says, the first decision any president makes is what carpet he wants in his office. As a take-charge leader, he then explains, he of course made a command decision — he delegated the decision to Laura Bush, who chose a yellow sunbeam design.

    Elizabeth Vargas, the ABC News anchor, was the latest to get the treatment. She went by last week to interview Bush before his trip to Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. Sure enough, she wasn’t in the room but a minute or two before he started telling her about the carpet.

    “You know an interesting story about the rug?” he asked. “Laura designed the rug.”

    “She did?” Vargas said.

    “Yeah, she did. Presidents are able to pick their own rugs or design their own rugs.”

    Bush went on: “The interesting thing about this rug and why I like it in here is ’cause I told Laura one thing. I said, ‘Look, I can’t pick the colors and all that. But make it say ‘optimistic person.’ “

  • He’s friggin’ insane…

    This like Queeg and his strawberries. There is no way that Bush will be handing over the keys to the White House on Jan 20, 2009. He’ll be gone long before then.

  • When he looked into the eyes of that rug, he saw into it’s soul. Yes, it’s a good rug. A good, God fearing and optimistic rug.

  • If you don’t think the rug is part of W’s canned speil about the Oval, you must go here http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/life/#, take the video tour, and let Bushie show you ’round. He’s got a script, and he does not deviate. And he knows the function of windows! Same the world over, I ‘spect. I was just surprised that we got through the entire tour and never once saw the giant perch (large-mouth bass?) stuffed and mounted to remind W of the happiest moment of his presidency. Perhaps a stuffed fish just doesn’t shout “Office of Optimist!” or maybe the taxidermist just couldn’t get it to turn its head, flip its tail, and sing “Take me to the river, drop me in the water,” when unsuspecting people move too close (“I love my singin’ fish, heh, heh, heh.”)

  • What that man has swept under that rug is probably why it’s so important to him. That thing, metaphorically and quite possibly literally, hides the true problems of this nation.

    I bet he had to take a vacation just to make the crisp decisions he needed to about the rug. Nero fiddled while Rome burned, Bush carpeted.

  • I have pretty much given up on trying to fanthom how Bush’s mind really works. Never having visited Never Never Land myself, I guess I never will.

  • What would Freud say about this? Better yet, what would Jung say
    about this? An optimistic rug? We are really in for it aren’t we?

  • Isn’t it yellow? That’s supposed to be bright and optimistic.

    Of course, yellow has other connotations, as well.

  • A rug and a 7.5 lb fish. Shrub’s range of thoughts is pretty limited for the “Decider”. I wonder where thought of his responsibilities to the Constitution and US citizens ranks in relation to his all important fish and goddamn rug. When will it be time to storm the Bastille and put this bastard where he belongs? Before or after he starts a nuclear war?

  • TuiMel: “If you don’t think the rug is part of W’s canned speil about the Oval, you must go here http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/life/#, take the video tour, and let Bushie show you ’round.”
    Wouldn’t do that. Zapped out my browser, tabs and all – Whooosh. Gone. (Were we so lucky) Totally non-functional.
    But the rug does have a colour suggestive of ripe bananas.

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