Washington, December 15: George W Bush is clearly enjoying himself. Alone on the stage, mic in hand, he tells a story about a moment earlier this year when he was walking his dog, Barney, around the Dallas suburb he now calls home.
“I wanted to say hello to my neighbours,” says Bush, “because I was worried we’d inconvenienced them when word was out that George Bush was moving where they lived. I hadn’t walked in a neighbourhood in eight years. Ain’t that interesting? Barney had never walked in a neighbourhood either … he only knew the lawn of the White House; he only knew Crawford, Texas, he only knew Camp David.”
He decided to go up to a neighbour and say hello, Bush tells us. But just as he goes to shake the neighbour’s hand, Bush realises that he still has a plastic poop bag covering his hand like a glove.
The image of Dubya holding a poop-scoop mitt settles on the audience who have come to see him speak at a stadium in San Antonio, Texas. Then he launches into another anecdote – an old favourite about the time Laura asked him to go out and buy a battery from the local hardware store and someone asked whether anyone had ever told him he looked just like the former President. It happens all the time, he’d replied. “The guy then takes a couple of steps away then turns round and says, ‘That must make you mad’.”
–Agencies