Technically, George W. Bush is fat. Or at least he was during his last official weigh-in in August 2006, when, during his annual physical, he tipped the scales at 196 pounds. With his height of 5 feet 11 1⁄2 inches, he had a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 27, qualifying him as “overweight.” Instead of acknowledging this fact, however, the White House medical report declared the President “fit for duty” and described his fitness as “superior” for men his age.
Two weeks ago, White House Executive Chef Cristeta Comerford told reporters at an international food summit in France that Dubya’s favorite food is “cheeseburger pizza.” Just like the version that Domino’s introduced in 2005, Bush’s Oval Office artery-clogger is based on a recipe developed by contestants on The Apprentice. Its toppings include ground beef, fried onions, cheese, bacon, pickles, another kind of cheese, tomatoes, more cheese and, who knows, maybe some artisanal cholesterol. “But he’s extremely disciplined and exercises every day,” Comerford quickly added after leaking this potentially subversive intel. “He watches his portion control!”
Comerford’s damage control was unnecessary—the American press completely ignored Cheeseburgerpizzagate. Throughout the Bush presidency, the news media has happily feasted on whatever doughnuts of truth the White House has dispensed about our leader’s fanatical devotion to exercise and published gushy paeans to his taut gams and trim waistline.
From, say, a secretly Communist anchorman’s perspective, such coverage makes perfect sense: Telling the truth about the president’s burgeoning girth would simply give him at least one thing in common with the common man. What’s harder to explain is why the White House refuses to capitalize on Dubya’s corpulence.
Every year around this time, Bush retreats to Crawford, Texas, for a late-summer ultramarathon of high-intensity photo ops. On epic mountain-bike rides across the nonmountainous terrain of his 1,600-acre play ranch, he subjects the plump, flaccid quads of White House pool reporters to modes of torture even Alberto Gonzales wouldn’t approve of. He dresses up in crisp, Botoxed blue jeans and a ceremonial cowboy hat and hammerlocks clumps of cedar twigs into submission.
Pick-up trucks are wheeled out, dust is kicked up and, theoretically at least, those tiny clouds of genuine Texas dirt partially obscure the dapper, French-tailored suits the former Yale cheerleader wears most of the time, the metrosexual eyewear he favors, the way he fusses over his pure-bred clutch-dogs Barney and Miss Beazley. Indeed, without the sweaty choreography of these annual pageants, what would you have but an Ivy-educated, iPod-wearing member of the elite who rhapsodizes with Gore-like fervor about his ranch’s geothermal heating and wastewater recycling systems and the 167 solar panels he installed on the White House roof in 2002?
Throw an organic spelt breadstick in your wealthy blue-state enclave of choice, and you’ll hit a dozen guys just like him. If you didn’t know any better, you’d swear he was the founder of a progressive cosmetics company, or maybe a program director at a liberal think tank.
The manly cardio drenched in ranch dressing kept Bush attractive to heartland voters throughout two elections, but apparently an endless, costly war is a mountain not even a $5,500 Trek Fuel can climb. According to Gallup Poll statistics, public opinion of President Bush dropped to a historic low in July. So perhaps a strategy change is in order. Instead of pedaling away from his officially overweight status as fast as his gimpy knees can propel him, he should embrace it in a meaty bear-hug and insist it stay for a huge platter of ribs and a slice of coconut cream pie.
'He Watches his portion control!'
After all, we’re a nation of fatties. The National Center for Health Statistics reports that two out of every three Americans are officially overweight or obese. Surely we can identify more with the man who choked on a pretzel in the midst of an all-day TV football binge than the one who goes mountain-biking on his lunch hour. When the photo ops commence at Crawford this year, bicycles, horses and any other form of transportation that does not involve combustion engines and built-in cup-holders should be strictly forbidden. Cheeseburger-pizza-eating contests should be the only form of exercise; instead of clearing brush, the president should simply focus on clearing his plate. In the end, Operation Feed Him may be his last shot at keeping his approval ratings above single-digit territory as his second term winds down.