EDITOR’S NOTE: In honor of Presidents’ Day, we asked our four living presidents to sit down with us and have a lively discussion about literally anything, but mostly about the current president who is currently killing our country.
What follows are the transcripts from that conversation …
ENOUGH ALREADY: Welcome. You all look remarkably well, given the current, exhaustive siege that is trying to swallow us whole. Any general thoughts to kick us off?
BILL CLINTON: “Well, I guess, I’ll start …”
JIMMY CARTER <interrupts>: “Hardly a surprise.”
CLINTON: “Throwing Georgia shade my way early, eh, Jimmy.”
BARACK OBAMA: “Go on, Bill. I’m going to go out and sneak a smoke or two while yer warmin’ up the act.”
CLINTON: “You, too, eh, Barack? Gee-hokey this is a tough crowd.”
GEORGE BUSH: “Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh … Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh … Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh …”
CLINTON: “Anyways … I guess I am still surprised by Trump’s utter incompetence and complete and willing ignorance. Imagine being so insecure and stupid that a low-grader like Sean Hannity is your only real friend. Why, we had a saying in Arkansas …”
<Carter snoring audibly in the background>
CLINTON: “OK, OK, I’ll take the hint and give it a rest for a minute.”
CARTER <startled>: “Who said, gas lines?!?!”
OBAMA: “It’s OK, Jimmy. Just a bad dream. Bill’s bringing all the gas you’ll ever need to this meeting.”
CLINTON: “Geeeeee-willikers. You guys are meaner than Dick Cheney on Martin Luther King Day.”
BUSH: “Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh … Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh … He was one scary critter, though. Never forget the one time there was this fly buzzin’ around the Oval Office and he took out a secret service guy trying to kill it. Lucky I ducked or it coulda been me!”
OBAMA: “Gotta say, George, you guys were pretty good about the transition but Cheney scared the shit out of me. You know we removed 127 bugs he’d placed in your office?”
BUSH: “Shoot … wait … what?!”
OBAMA: “Never mind.”
CARTER: “Well, at least you didn’t have to replace Jefferson.”
CLINTON: “Ford. You replaced Ford, Jimmy.”
CARTER: “Eh? Oh yes. My word, those Fords were terrible on gas. After that crisis, I got to driving nothing but hybrids.”
BUSH: “Cheney had my office bugged?????”
OBAMA: “Never mind.”
ENOUGH ALREADY: “Now over two years into the Trump Administration, what concerns you most?”
OBAMA: “Is there another answer besides, everything?”
CLINTON: “Actually, there is and I think if you’ll bear with me I can give you a succinct breakdown of the shortfalls and out and out disinformation that Trump and those around him are assimilating through semi-covert means — and by that I mean Fox News — and are providing the American populace with what I would call distortions and innuendo …”
BUSH <interrupting>: “Why’s he orange???”
CARTER: <now snoring loudly>
OBAMA: “You’ve put Jimmy to sleep again, Bill, and I only got a few butts left, so if you could maybe distill what yer trying to say, please, we’d all be appreciative.”
CLINTON: “You bet, buddy, but I do remember you being quite the talker. So stones, glass houses and all that, brother.”
CARTER <startled>: “Houses? Yes, me and Rosalynn have now built about 15,000 houses since Roosevelt graciously replaced me as America’s No. 1 public servant.”
CLINTON: “Reagan, Jimmy. It was Reagan who replaced you. And he didn’t so much replace you as he did put in place what I think was a brilliant disinformation campaign aimed at capitalizing on what appeared to be an anti-America malaise growing among the populace spearheaded by what I believe was a post-Vietnam angst. It was actually a brilliant strategy employed by who I think was actually a dullard and was manufacturing …”
CARTER: <now snoring loudly again>
OBAMA: “BILL!! Please! Rein it in just a bit, man. Damn. Look, we all know you are the smartest one here <snort> so, eh, you have nothing to prove … <snort>.”
BUSH: “But why is Trump orange????”
(OBAMA tosses BUSH a Rubik’s cube>: “Ever see one of those, George?”
BUSH: “Can you eat it?”
CLINTON <under his breath, semi-inaudible>: “My God, and Al lost to that …”
BUSH: “I heard that, Bill. Now, I might not be the smartest deck in the cards, but I got feelin’s.”
CLINTON: “Sorry, George. Apologies. Compared to what we got in the White House right now, you might as well be Nostradamus.
BUSH: “Thank you. I did always want to be an astronaut, ya know.”
OBAMA: “Jesus, I need another smoke …”
CLINTON: “Nothing to add about Trump, Barack?”
OBAMA: “I’m not surprised we got him.”
CLINTON: “Say what?”
OBAMA: “You’ll have to wait until Bob releases his report.”
BUSH: “You know something we don’t, Barack?”
OBAMA: “OK, that one is just too easy …”
CLINTON: “Careful, Barack, I see what game yer playing here … Nobody likes a wise guy.”
BUSH: “I like wise guys!”
OBAMA: “Speaking of wise guys, let’s keep this conversation on the Trump family, eh?”
ENOUGH ALREADY: “Clever as always. Thanks for keeping us focused, President Obama.”
OBAMA: “You bet. George, how you comin’ with that cube?”
BUSH: “It doesn’t roll real well …”
CLINTON (under his breath): “I just don’t get how Al lost to this guy …”
BUSH: “I’m pretty sure I heard that, Bill.”
CLINTON: “I didn’t say anything, George.
BUSH: “I don’t know about that.”
CLINTON: “Would I lie to you?”
(dead silence in the room)
OBAMA: “OK, boys, that’ll be enough.”
ENOUGH ALREADY: “Thanks again, President Obama.”
OBAMA: “Shut up.”
ENOUGH ALREADY: “Yes, sir.”
OBAMA: “Jimmy? You got a take on this Trump fiasco?”
CARTER: “Donald Trump is an immoral man. He makes George and Bill look like Lincoln.”
BUSH: “Thank you. Er, who is Lincoln?”
CLINTON (under his breath): “Idiot.”
CLINTON: “And I don’t appreciate that, Jimmy. I was a two-termer and left this ignoramus (Bush) with the strongest economy in the history of this nation only to watch him flush it down the toilet. I just don’t know how Al lost to this guy.”
BUSH: “Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh … Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh …”
CLINTON: “What’s so funny?!?!”
BUSH: “You said, toilet.”
OBAMA: “<audible sigh> Almost out of smokes here, boys. We need to wrap this up. It’s date night and Michelle will have my skinny ass if I’m late.”
ENOUGH ALREADY: “Before we end this, any predictions for what the next year or so will look like?”
CLINTON: “Don’t look at me. I’ll wait my turn this time.”
BUSH: “I reckon I’m just happy that I keep looking better and better all the time thanks to Donald. People were madder than a bunch of hornets when I left office.”
OBAMA: “You were a, er, um … tough act to follow, George.”
BUSH: “Why thank you, Barack. Say, what is it you are supposed to do with this square thingy, anyway?”
CARTER: “I predict that I will keep defying the odds and be around when this Trump nightmare comes to its fitting end.”
CLINTON: “Tarnation, that is pretty direct coming from you, Jimmy!”
CARTER: “Well, I prayed for Trump once and one of my Habitat houses was struck by lightning, so that was the end of that.”
OBAMA: “Whoa. Another reason to skip church.”
BUSH: “Well, I’m a church-goin’ sonofagun, myself. I won’t bother prayin’ for Donald — especially ‘cuz he was so mean to Jeb. I used to pray for Dick, though, until I just found out he bugged my office.”
OBAMA: “I wouldn’t give it a second thought, George. It was nothing compared to the war crimes dossier he had compiled on you.”
BUSH: “Dossy-what?!?!”
OBAMA: “Never mind …”
