Bush on a bike-peddling to Armageddon

By Jerry Mazza

According to the July 27 Miami Herald, "President [sic] Bush had a minor mountain biking accident on his Crawford ranch but dusted himself off, waved the medics away and kept rolling." Helluva guy.

With only a small cut on his knee and dirt on his back, he admitted he was a bit shaken up. Yeah, me too. Especially when I heard this was the head of the free world’s new hobby, a way "to get his heart rate up and spend time outdoors without aggravating achy knees" (probably the aspartame from all those diet sodas he gulps. The neurotoxin hardens the synovial fluids and causes agonizing joint pain, among other things).

As the AP reporter invited to ride with Bush noted, "Bush has been riding the knobby-tired bikes since February, and he rides with abandon. Over an 18-mile ride that lasts an hour and 20 minutes, he burns about 1,200 calories and his heart rate reaches 168 beats per minute. About four times his resting rate and in the same range as Lance Armstrong’s when the six-time Tour de France winner is pedaling hard." You ever wonder when this dude finds time to run the country. Or if he’s trying to vanish into the sunset over the last hill like Road Runner.

He says, "At my age (58), you’re more concerned about the cardiovascular" (benefits of the workout). But mountain biking, he says, has a "mind-clearing effect on him." I wonder when it’s going to kick in, given the progress of the Iraq War, the disastrous deficits, his stalking away from a reporter who asked him about his friend Ken Lay, former Enron honcho, now facing prosecution and his backstage performance, telling an aid to keep the M--- F---s (reporters) away from him, or he’d find somebody who could. And as a result of that and other outbursts, mood swings, furies and rants, there’s Bush’s recent prescription from the White House physician for heavy-duty anti-depressants. And there’s his ever-increasing withdrawal into the bosoms of a few cronies, like Rove, Ashcroft Karen Hughes, and his favorite lounge pianist, Condoleezza Rice.

And then there’s that old booze Jones lurking in the back of his head, that dry drunk yearning for the free methyl alcohol the diet sodas’ aspartame liberates; the resulting poisoning that affects the dopamine level of the brain and causes addiction. Yeah, I could see why a guy might get on a bike and just go like the devil, peddle his heart out, even though the joints, if not the soul, must be screaming. If he claims, "My right knee really had it. Running is really a painful experience for me now . . ." how could pumping his $3,100, Trek Fuel 98 bike (custom-made of space age carbon fiber) not hurt like a mother? Or is this just a press-ride? He’s been taking them on one for years.

I mean I don’t have bad knees, though I have seven years on Bush. And the 15 miles I bike on my $350 Diamondback dirt bike, which is a lot heavier than a Trek Fuel-that hour and 40 minute ride from my Upper West Side apartment down the Hudson River bike path to Battery Park to ogle Lady Liberty in the Bay, and to listen to echoes of nearby Ground Zero in the wind-that and the trip back, leave me aching for hours. And that’s just doing it for exercise, not to set any macho land record or mime the incomparable Armstrong, heart rate or anything else. Let’s get a little perspective here. The guy’s got a nation and a family to care for, and he’s a car wreck.

I mean it’s no wonder he approaches the steep descents warily. As the AP reporter noted, "in the moments before Monday’s crash, he warned his riding party of a sharp drop and a hard left turn ahead." Bush said, "I’m gonna show you a hill that would choke a mule." Oooee, bring it on! Then he hits the brakes advancing downhill. His front tire loses its grip in loose rocks. His foot gets stuck in the pedal strap. Before you know it, the rear wheel is up in the air, Bush is zooming over the handlebars, landing (unlike on the aircraft carrier in a victory jump suit on his feet), this time on his butt, excuse me, back. And I think of Roosevelt, carrying a hundred pounds of metal braces on his legs, everyday of his life, not even allowing the press to photograph him beneath his waist, so as not to worry the American people. This while he led the nation and the world to victory over the Nazis. But hey, that was another day, another guy.

Bush got himself together after a few minutes. The reporter pulled the bike off him. Medics arrived. Trees and a drop-off were near by. And Bush was uninjured this time, though the road was littered with rocks. And the reporter noted that the reflector that snapped off the bike . . . Bush left it as a warning marker for next time. Will he leave a warning marker in Iraq for the next nation he plans to unilaterally attack, without allies, UN approval, or US or world approval? Will he leave it to remind him of the blood spilled there by Americans, Iraqis, the Coalition of the Willing, private citizens, name it?

Or will he look up, smirk on face, saying as he did on his Crawford Ranch, "We’ve got thrills, spills-you name it." Yeah, I will. Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, 9/11, a bankrupt treasury, 2 million jobs lost in his first year in office, the trend continuing every month. AWOL from the Texas National Guard, arrested in Kennebunkport in 1976 for driving under the influence, Texas driving record lost, and a billion dollars or more a week to fight two wars, the record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12-month period, the all-time record for biggest drop in the U.S. stock market, most fund-raising trips of any U.S. president [sic], most corporate campaign donations. And so on . . .

Not to mention Ken Lay, Bush’s largest lifetime contributor (also former CEO of the largest corporate bankruptcy fraud), protector of friends from Enron and Halliburton, provider of the highest gas prices in US history, creator of the largest bureaucracy in American government: the Ministry of Homeland Security, first prez [sic] to have the US removed by the UN from the Human Rights Commission, second president [sic] to steal an election (if you count the Hayes-Tilden election of 1876) . . . and so on.

On and on it goes like an endless bike ride over a barren landscape, gearing up or down to nowhere. A landscape where well-pumps bob like locusts, sucking up the oil, the endless oil, for an insatiable appetite, while the squeaky wheels of the rich always get the lion’s lick, and so on. All as we roll into a hapless future, behind a hapless leader, braking when he should roll, rolling when he should brake. A leader who doesn’t have a clue that one day the ride, one way or the other, is going to be over.

But listen, there’s always that Lady, a long way away in the harbor, standing tall, her Gallic face proud, strong, like the tradition of liberty she hands down to us; that she handed down to the millions who crossed her path from all over the world to Ellis Island in search of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Which like the song title of the Gershwin boys (who’s family lived west of me on West 103rd Street) says, They Can’t Take That Away From Me. Nor should they from any of us, via USA PATRIOT Act, constitutional amendment, violation of amendments, the stacking of the Supreme and other courts, leaving poor kids behind in the educational system for want of $26 billion in funding, cutting the pay and benefits of servicemen, and so on.

Maybe Junior should learn to ride a horse to save those hurting knees if he wants "a different way to get outside and get exercise . . . the feeling of the wind rushing past him . . . on his favorite piece of property." Riding a horse is very Republican, vintage Americana, right up his alley, the old cowboy spirit, reminiscent of the Gip, John Wayne, even the estimable, country-grabbing Teddy Roosevelt, sponsor of another war-inciting incident, the revolution in Panama.

Who knows, since Dubya’s said to so many of us Welcome to Hard Times, he may soon enough become a High Plains Drifter himself, sheriff of sheriffs, a legend in his own mind, a dot on the bright sun of memory. All I can say is adios, amigo. The sooner the better.

Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer, and New York lifer. Find him at gvmaz@verizon.net.

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