There have been funnier accounts, but this one has its moments, IMHO. Nobody goes home "in a huff" quite like "Donny." Whatever would we do without him?

Dubya's Week: Making Rumsfeld sweat
8 May 2004 by Malcolm Drury
Verbatim highlights of the daily journal of George W. Bush for the week of May 2 to May 8, 2004. A challenging week for our man as allegations that US troops torture and abuse Iraqi prisoners continue to surface. Interestingly he makes no reference to his "apology" to King Abdullah of Jordan ("Jordo"). Are the Defence Secretary's days numbered? Or is it all just a bluff? Stay with us as we continue to try to fathom the mind of America's best-ever 43rd president.


Sunday 2 May
Not much to do today, and going on the road tomorrow doing a bit more campaning, so started to rite my own speech, I'm getting tired of these speechriters riting stuff I don't reelly understand, like ekonomics.

I started out four skor and seven years ago.... and then got stuck, couldn't remember how many four skor is, so I phoned Cheney to ask him. He said OK, how many is one skor, and I said I don't know, I never learned that metric stuff, so he said well it's twenty, so how many is four skor, and I thought about it a bit and said fifty-six? And he said OK, you go with that George, what are you doing anyway. So I told him and he said we've told you before not to rite your own speeches, just use what the guys give you, besides it sounds to me like it's from Lincoln's Gettisberg address. I said no it's not, I didn't even know he lives in Gettisberg.

Monday 3 May
On the road today in the campane bus to meet ordinery peeple, show I'm one of them. Gave a speech in some place I never heard of, dissided I'd better go with what the riters give me to say after all, don't want to upset Cheney, he can get reel mad. One guy got up and said he'd promised his kid that if she got potty trained he'd take her to see Mickey Mouse, and my tax cut helped him to do just that. Phoned Cheney to tell him all about it and I said hey Dick, are you potty trained, I've notissed you often go red and grunt when I talk to you. He just grunted again and hung up. Sheesh, it was only a joke, maybe he isn't potty trained, that might explain a few things.

Toosday 4 May
Got a letter from a bunch of retired American dipplermats just like the one Terry Blair got last week from limey dipplermats, said I was wrong to let Sharon keep his assets in the West Bank and we got it all wrong in Iraq. So I phoned Terry and said what are you doing about them that rote to you and he said nothing just yet but they might find their penshun checks a bit short later on, mistakes will happen, if you take my meaning. So I said thanks, that's a grate idea. But I wasn't reelly sure what he meant so I got on the phone to Donny and said is there space at Gwantanmono Bay for another sixty peeple or so, just in case we need it and he said sure, no problem.

Wensday 5 May
Them photos of our troops torchering and abusing Iraqish prisoners is getting to be a reel big scandal, bet Kerry is just loving it, big goody goody show off with his medals. Dissided to go on arab TV and say no offens intended, can we still be frends or something like that. Not gonna say sorry though, I never do that, sign of weekness, and besides Condi already did it. I said maybe I should dress up like an arab and sit on a camel, but the guys said that wouldn't be appropriet and we don't have a camel anyway.

Anyway I gave two interviews, think I did OK. Later on I phoned Donny and said by the way I'm not too pleased with how you've been handling this, I might have to let you go. Haven't dissided if I'm reelly gonna fire him but I'm at least gonna keep him gessing for a while, gotta pay him back for this mess he's landed me in.

Thersday 6 May
Donny came over after brekfast to read me the reviews of my interviews in the arab papers. He said one of them said my performance was egreejus, I said what's that mean and he thought for a while and then said well it kind of means it reelly stood out as being exceptional. I said grate, that's what I was aiming for. Then we learned that more torcher photos have appeered today so I got reel mad, I said OK, you can leave now. He kinda hung back but I said I'll call for you if I need you, I'm going to talk to Condi about all this, maybe I should make her defens secraterry. He went reel white and kicked the door open but he left without saying anything.

Friday 7 May
Must have torcher on my mind, fell asleep during quick meeting with the guys and dreamt that Cheney took his glasses off and he was reelly Dr Evil, and he said he was going to kidnap me and take me to his secrit cave and torcher me until I gave lots of contracts to Hallyburton. Woke up screaming and security guys came in, I wasn't quite myself and said he's trying to kidnap me, and they said who, and I said him and pointed at Cheney. So they jumped on him and were going to take him away and then I came to my senses again and I said wait it was just a dream. Donny and Ashcroft and the rest of them were laffing, so I just said Dick, take your glasses off, then I said see how much he looks like Dr Evil. Then they all started laffing even louder, except Cheney, he was pretty mad.

Donny apolagized to senate committy about them Iraqish torchers so I figger I'll probbly keep him on. Gonna let him swet for a few days though, whatever I disside.

Saterday 8 May
Day off.

Nice day so I phoned the guys and said come on over for lunch, we'll have a picnic on the lawn, so they came over. But when the cat saw Donny it hissed at him and was going to bite him so he shouted at it, he said I'm sick of that cat trying to bite me all the time, and it ran up a tree and wouldn't come down. So I said you'd better get up there and rescue it, it's your fault it's stuck, but he said no way, I'm not climbing a tree. Then Condi said if your scared maybe you shouldn't be defens secraterry, so he said OK OK, I'll get it down and he climbed up the tree, but he got stuck. He can reelly cuss when he panniks. We were all rolling on the ground laffing, speshally Condi, we had to get the security guys to bring a ladder to get him down, boy was he ever mad, and he glared at Condi and said you'll get yours then went home in a huff.