Vanity Fair: The Simple Life: White House Edition

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The Simple Life: White House Edition

From the slapstick genius of his China trip to his spitball contests with the press, Bush has the makings of a major reality-TV star. With some image tweaking, the author proposes, a 24-hour "Prez Channel" could turn the administration's dismal ratings around.
by James Wolcott October 2007

If I were programmer in chief of this great, ignoble nation of ours, I would decree the creation of a cable channel devoted entirely to the daily activities of the president of the United States: a continuous feed of every public move and policy implementation the Leader of the Free World makes—every speech, Cabinet meeting, press conference, wreath-laying ceremony, signing statement, fat-cat fund-raiser, factory-floor tour, state dinner, motorcade ride, morning jog with the Secret Service, prayer breakfast, and game of fetch with Barney, the unimpeachable White House dog. In September, XM Satellite Radio launched a new 24-hour channel called P.O.T.U.S. '08 (Secret Service acronymic code for president of the United States), featuring podcasts, field reports, and free blab time for presidential hopefuls, but seeing beats listening, even when there isn't that much to see. This channel, my channel, would combine streaming video with packaged segments exploring a single theme such as "Awkward Moments on the Tarmac" (like when Bush dropped Barney on his head). Some spoilsports might consider such saturation coverage of the chief executive intrusive and excessive, unbecoming of a once respected superpower. But why should the president enjoy more privacy than any other beloved/reviled celebrity in or out of rehab? Washington has so eroded rights to privacy it seems only fair to return the favor. If peekaboo access is withheld because of some carefully concocted national-security concern—when, say, private talks are being held in the Oval Office with lobbyists, members of Congress, foreign dignitaries, and other dubious characters, or when the current occupant and the First Mate are sedately a-slumber while the rest of the country lies awake worried sick about health-care costs—a stationary camera could be trained on the White House from a chaste distance, much as the Empire State Building was enshrined by Andy Warhol's aloof, mystifying gaze in the eight-hour monochromatic epic Empire. If the camera observes a pet chimp being buried in the backyard in the gothic moonlight, so much the better.

Given that unlikelihood, however, a slate of all-president all-the-time programming may not hold the initial promise of a pulse-racing ratings grabber. At first groan, it may sound as enticing as an intravenous drip of slow death, a premature burial in the hourglass sands of time. Aren't the videos posted on the official White House Web site boring enough? cynics will gibe. Ah, oui, they are, unless you're riveted by T-ball festivities featuring former Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda standing around like a penguin, or a roundtable on the Employment Eligibility Verification System. But the Prez Channel—as I envision this dreambaby—needn't be a passive onlooker deprived of the additives and flavorings that have made American television the finest in the land. A splash of personality here, a spark of friction there—these could make all the diff. It could be reality TV writ large, a Bob Woodward book come to life. We've already got a president capable of playing along.

In Alexandra Pelosi's campaign documentary, Journeys with George, which premiered on HBO in 2002, George W. Bush ably demonstrated that he has the Stove Top Stuffing of a genuine fake reality-TV star. He filled out the part to fit the flight of his ego. According to James Poniewozik's review in Time magazine, "When learned she was making a movie, says Pelosi, 'he realized he was either going to be the butt of the joke or the star of the show. So he decided to be the star.'" Acting like an overgrown Matthew McConaughey with the gaggle of reporters, Bush Jr. joshed, grinned, crinkled, flirted, gamely indulged in self-mockery, proffered big-brotherly advice to Pelosi (the daughter of current Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi), and, as comic relief from the high-altitude cabin fever, rolled oranges down the aisle of the plane as if it were a bowling alley. In the annals of cinéma vérité, Journeys with George posed no threat to the classic status of such fly-on-the-walls as D. A. Pennebaker's Dont Look Back or Frederick Wiseman's institutional exams (High School, Hospital, Juvenile Court, Public Housing, etc.), but as an inside glimpse of Dubya Unplugged it was judged a P.R. boon for the president, "a rare record of the one-on-one Dubya we've often heard described by his cronies but rarely seen—a loose, funny, people-savvy seducer" (Time again). His vulgarity was interpreted as a by-product of an earthy vitality and authenticity denied his Democratic opponent, that circuit board known as Al Gore. Joe Leydon enthused in Variety, "It's been reported some of President Bush's current handlers are worried that 'Journeys with George' will make Dubya look somehow 'less presidential.' Actually, the only thing they have to complain about is the timing of the pic's release: Had it appeared prior to the 2000 election, there likely would not have been any disputes over the Florida vote count, because Bush's electoral victory would have been all the more resounding." Yup, Bush's likability was still a viable asset way back then in November of '02, when his approval numbers were the highest of any president going into midterm elections since Dwight Eisenhower and Republicans rode the crest of that popularity to recapture the Senate and pad their majority in the House, an almost unprecedented feat. Those were the days when almost every column by Peggy Noonan sounded as if it could be sung by Julie Andrews with a chorus of bluebirds. Today it's boobirds that caw. We're sick of him now and bored beyond exasperation. Following Abu Ghraib, Katrina, the Valerie Plame scandal, his flyboy showboating on the aircraft carrier with the mission accomplished banner as backdrop, the ongoing evisceration of Iraq, and the shaming embarrassment of Alberto Gonzales as attorney general, the majority of us can't wait for Bush to drag himself back to Dodge bearing the invisible stigmata of permanent disgrace to wind down his days in the infernal glow of wildfires heralding the wrath of the global warming he did nothing as president to forestall. Yet although his poll numbers are Nixonian, reflecting low esteem acidifying into outright loathing, his presidential brand still carries enough residual goodwill to enjoy a minor comeback, if only his zoo handlers would allow a spot of image tweaking by the creative team of infotainment pros I intend to assemble at Prez once the phones are installed. Underneath his arid exterior is a deposit of wet clay just dying to be manipulated.

It isn't that the frat-rat funny bones that once beguiled a gullible press have entirely retracted into the rigid armor and determined lockjaw of Unwavering Resolve. His hair may have gone steel gray, his brow may have become furrowed, his gunslinger stride as he ambles to the lectern may betray signs of uncomfortable chafing in the lower 40, but his knack for Red Skelton slapstick remains intact (remember that wacky routine in China when he couldn't get the red door open?—how he milked it for pantomime), as does his ability to surrender to the beat and bust a funky move (as he did with a West African dance troupe to spotlight Malaria Awareness Day). His impish humor and tone-deaf faux pas supply plenty of material that could be spun into gold with the proper editing software. Welcoming N.C.A.A. championship teams to the White House on June 18, Bush reeled off some of the team names of those present: "There's Tigers and Badgers, Huskers and Anteaters. Go Anteaters. Fight Anteaters." Seeing that his Anteaters bit had pretty much run its miniature course (shades of Letterman's "Uma, Oprah; Oprah, Uma"), he returned to his prepared statement, urging the athletes gathered to use their championship status "to help heal a broken heart." He kids because he cares. Vamping a few opening remarks on a drop-in visit with small-business owners and budget balancers in Nashville, Tennessee, on July 19, the Compassionate Conservative cavalierly acknowledged a returning soldier in the audience who had been rendered an amputee. "Good man," he said. "We're going to get him some new legs, and if he hurries up, he can out-run me on the South Lawn of the White House." Bush made it sound as if somebody was going to pop over to the Leg Store and fit the fella up good as new.

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