It is evening, less than two weeks until the midterm election. President George W. Bush is walking slowly towards his residence in the White House. His head is down, and he appears somewhat disconsolate. His lips move steadily yet soundlessly, as if mentally rehearsing a speech or reading “The Pet Goat.â€? In his right hand, he clutches a folded piece of paper. As he nears the residence, he finds his thoughts turning away from his beleaguered administration and towards his ranch in Crawford. He imagines himself contentedly clearing brush beneath a searing blue sky. The blue of Laura’s eyes. In the distance, circling patiently, the buzzard hawks call to one another…
LAURA: (smiling) George!
GEORGE: (startled from his reverie) Oh, hi, sweetie.
LAURA: How was your day?
GEORGE: (blandly) Okay, I guess.
LAURA: You don’t sound very convincing. Is everything okay? Dick didn’t take that tone with you again, did he? I know how you hate that.
GEORGE: (evasively) No, no…nothin’ like that. The day was fine, just an ord’nary day…you know, keeping Americans safe from terr’ism. Oh, and Karl told me a pretty funny fart joke.
LAURA: What’s that?
GEORGE: Well, the pope decides one day he’s in the mood for beans, so….
LAURA: No, what’s that? (She points to the paper still clutched in her husband’s hand.)
GEORGE: (suddenly abashed and dodging her eyes) Nothin’.
LAURA: Really? It looks like it might be something important.
GEORGE: (shrugging) I dunno. Maybe.
LAURA: (frowning) Is that your report card, George? The one you were expecting from the Council on Foreign Relations? On “homeland security�?
George does not reply. He is overwhelmed with feelings of disappointment and embarrassment and anger. He knows as sure as there is a God in heaven speaking through him that he should have aced this homeland security eval. Wasn’t that his specialty, what he and the Republicans were supposed to be good at? Five years after 9/11, how could he have gotten such mediocre grades? It was Yale all over again.
LAURA: (gently) Let me see it, George.
GEORGE: (reluctantly handing it over) I tried my best, Laura. Honest. I think they just had it in for me. Maybe al-Qa’ida got to them.
The leader of the free world then turns and stomps sullenly away. Laura, shaking her head and sighing, opens the report card and examines her husband’s progress:
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