pondent’s Roast’ of the President held recently here in D.C. Satirist Stephen Colbert headlined this and as usual, dished out his dry satire on the Bush Administration. The interesting part of this, according to one of my old media friends who was present, initially, Bush didn’t have a clue he was being made fun of and was joining in the laughter and clapping that greeted Colbert’s sallies. Then, my friend said, an aide leaned over and whispered to him and from his immediate change of expression, it was obvious he was informed that he was being panned, and to stop smirking and applauding the insults.

My informant told me that it became so embarrassing that people near Bush tried to be dead-panned and made it a point not to look at him or be too enthusiastic in their applause. The President, now aware of the truth of the matter, was grimly angry, his face twitching and his eyes glaring more than usual. Colbert was not nasty like Imus was when he took Clinton on but very funny and my informant told me he thoroughly enjoyed Bush’s obvious anger and frustration.

It has now been decreed that TV films of the roast are not to be played on television, at the specific request (read order) of the President. Bootleg copies are out there and are a howl.

Poor Bush is becoming aware that he is almost universally (28% in White House opinion polls as of May 20) hated and he is taking his frustration and fury out on everyone around him.

And this leads me to the second bit of comments. Bush does not like Congress. Bush does not like anyone who ever, ever criticized him or thwarts his designs.

Congress compelled him to scrap the Dubai Ports deal which would have made him, personally, a great deal of money. To add insult to injury, senior Congressional Republicans have been begging him to clean up his act before November, something he flatly refuses to do, just to spite them.

Their importuning's have motivated him to encourage that sycophantic and disgusting toady, Gonzales the AG, to raid a Congressman’s office during an investigation, something that has both sides of the aisle in a rage, which Bush thought was a good idea because the Congressman was both black and a Democrat and Bush hates both.

Bush loves to frustrate and block people, a negative, childish form of anger, but then starts to quiver with fear when he realizes he has gone too far and gets Bad People after him.

Frankly, George Senior should have slapped him when he did this as a child. Spare the rod and spoil the child as it were.

If, and probably when, his Republicans lose control of the Senate and House, no one knows what Bush will do. He is someone who was spoiled as a child, is petulant and demanding, vengeful and generally a man without any character whatsoever.

If he is blocked by Congress in any of his ultra-right schemes, God knows what sort of malicious revenge he will concoct. Someone at the Pentagon said Friday that they were concerned lest Bush tried to declare martial law (a terrorist jaywalking attack in Ft. Lauderdale? People misspelling his name on public lavatory walls?) and punish everyone else in the country.

If gas prices go where we expect them to and if the toll of the dead in Iraq continues to mount, he may well have to double the White House guard, which is already the largest in Presidential history. I doubt if the SS people here have told Bush about the mountains of hate mail and serious physical threats that are pouring into the White House these days. The roof, by the way, has more anti-aircraft defenses than the Battleship Missouri. This is supposed to be a big secret but there are no big secrets here inside the Beltway anymore.

And when the SS detail gets wind of an off-course private plane near the White House, Bush runs down to the basement, three steps at a time, and hides in the bomb cellar. What a glorious military leader we have here! No wonder he won’t go to any kind of a military funeral , marking one of his sacrifices on the alter of his shriveled vanity. He’s afraid some parent will yell bad things at him, in front of the cameras, and hurt his delicate feelings.”