Elizabeth Vargas's Bush Interview: Up Close and Personal
"You're much prettier than Brit Hume, I don't know why Dick didn't talk with you instead."
We've had a few things to say about Elizabeth Vargas's exclusive ABC interview with President Bush. But a media event of this magnitude merits more detailed analysis and multiple posts (just like yesterday's big news, Anna Nicole Smith's trip to the Supreme Court).
For a selection of the interview's highlights, check out the Hotline . For a selection of the interview's lowlights -- our favorite inanities, along with running color commentary -- continue reading this post, which resumes after the jump .
That Elizabeth Vargas, she is one hard-hitting journalist!
VARGAS: Your desk is so clean Mr. President.
BUSH: Yeah, well, you know that is what happens when you have desk cleaners everywhere.
Yeah -- you can't get blow jobs from the interns.
VARGAS: Do you spend a lot of time here?
BUSH: I do. This is where my main office. I've got an office here obviously, and I've got one upstairs in the White House on the second floor, right down from our bedroom. It's called the treaty room. I like to work here 'cause I like how open it feels.
This is clearly what every American home needs: a treaty room. It will supplant the "great room" as the new "it" room in luxury real estate.
BUSH: You know an interesting story about the rug? Laura designed the rug.
VARGAS: She did?
BUSH: Yeah, she did. Presidents are able to pick their own rugs...
And so are congressmen .
VARGAS: Did you just change the rug, or did you change some of the furniture as well?
BUSH: Changed the rug, no, the rugs been here since I've been here. Or actually since she designed the rug and then it was woven.
VARGAS: So what happens when you're finished?
BUSH: It goes in a warehouse.
VARGAS: It does?
BUSH: Yeah. (Laughs)
VARGAS: You're not going to take it home and put it in a family room or something?
Okay, help us out, our memory's a little hazy on this. Isn't that what the Clintons tried to do? Put all the White House loot in a truck and drive off to Chappaqua? But didn't they get in trouble for that or something?
VARGAS: I see your pictures of the girls back there. How are they?
BUSH: They're good. They're great. Thanks for asking.
Yup, they're dandy -- you know, getting wasted and sleeping around, just like girls in their twenties should.
VARGAS: You and your wife have done such a great job of protecting them and preserving their right to have personal, private lives