<From: gwb
To: Hank Blakely
Sent: Sunday, April 28, 2002
Subject: More 'bout my hard life
 
Hey, you 'member that old song ever'body sang when we was kids?
 
       Nobody loves me. Ever' body hates me
       Guess I'll go and eat some worms!
 
Well, lately I been thinkin' a' makin' it my own personal mantaray.
 
Land a' mercy, I swear: only people that don't hate me is the ones that's laughin' at me, and could be they hates me too.
 
This laughin' at me stuff's startin' to get to me. I don't know where it come from all uvva sudden. One minute they's all scared even to look cross-eyed at me, and next I'm some kinda big fat joke, 'n people is treatin' me like I wasn't even here.
 
Hell, for all the good I'm doin', maybe I ain't here. I tell Ariel to pull out, 'cause this time I ain't foolin', and damned if five minutes later the son uvva gun ain't rollin' into some other town. 'pears to me Ariel's bound and determined to jam his privates in the wringer, which 'd be okay with me, 'cept he's tryin 'a squeeze mine in there with 'im.
 
Then I says to Arafat — well, I has Colin say —"Yassir, you got to stop these hostiles right quick!" But ol' Yassir, he just laugh and asks if I ever been to the Alamo.
 
That Yassir, now there's a case. They got him hemmed in so tight he has to sleep standin' up. Got him tied up like pig in a ropin' contest. Plus the Israeli army's got all kinds of sophisticated techno-jiggies ever'where but up his keister. He can't even think about takin' a pee without what they knows. And yet, somehow it seems like the son uvva buck is still able to issue orders to his bombers and gunmen. Otherwise, how else could they be continuin'?
 
I don't have no idea how he does it. I hope it don't mean the Palestinians got mental telepathy or somethin'. Maybe it's magic.
 
But much as Ariel and Yassir hates each other, it ain't nothin' compared to Colin 'n Rummy. Talk about two boys that don't get along. I guess it's only natural, bein' as they is such complete oppositionals. Dick C. says Colin is "burdened with a excess a' caution," and ever'body knows that Rummy got no caution at all.
 
If we had anythin' like a clear policy in the Middle East or Afghanistan, them two would sure be puttin' it at risk.
 
In a loose kinda way, Ariel, Rummy 'n Colin 'sposed to be my friends, but I can't even get 'em to stop fightin' long enough to see they's makin' me look bad.
 
What's the use a' bein' President if people don't do what you tell 'em to?
 
Truth is, I never been no good at makin' friends. Seems to me a friend is somebody who pretty much thinks the way you does. Problem is my thinkin' ain't exactly nailed down; it don't stay in one place long enough for nobody to draw a bead on it. I can be agreein' with some fella one day and arguin' with 'im 'bout the same thing the next. Sometimes I can hold two opposin' thoughts in my head at the same time. That's one a' my greatest strengths.
 
But I think it might also account for how I gets what I'm sayin' mixed up sometimes. Sometmes the thing I believes changes 'fore I get to the end a' my sentence, and I gotta step quick to make it come out right — which it generally don't.
 
This is just one example a' the kinda tough life I have lived. Lotta people think they got it bad, but they just don't know how bad it can get. I seen in the paper where some Palestinian mothers in the camps got to spit in their babies' mouths so they don't get un-hydrous and die. Well, sure, that sounds pretty bad, but let me ask you somethin'. You think that mother ever been through a fraternity hazin'? I don't think so. Let her try that, then come back tellin' me her hard luck stories.
 
Speakin' a' which, how 'bout them suicidals? They's a whole 'nother thing, ain't they?. I can't imagine what it'd be like to deliberate blow yourself up. When I was a flier I come pretty close to doin' it a coupla times by accident, and them times scared the crap outta me. Literal.
 
But to pull the pin on yourself deliberate, knowin' that the next minute you're gonna be wall paint, never gonna see your family or even have a beer with friends ever again. Why would somebody just blow away all his hopes for the future. I hear they do it real calm, like they was already dead 'fore they did it.
 
They must be crazy.
 
Only good thing so far is Democrats been trippin' over each other to support me on whatever my Israel policy of the day is — at the same time polls says their votin' base's startin' to think the other way.
 
Democrats don't need no enemies long's they got each other.
 
But they sure is helpin' me out.
 
Sometimes I wonder if my enemies ain't my only friends.