A Hole in the Administration

Michael Gerson, the Christian lunatic and White House speechification operative who gave us the phrase "axis of evil", has announced his intention to leave a hole at the centre of the administration. "There's no way to replace him," Karl Rove oleaginised in the New York Times. "He is a once-in-a-generation. He helped take the president on his best day and represent what was in the president's spirit and soul." The contents of Bush's spirit and soul are apparently unrelated to his unscripted pearls, being more effectively disgorged in such phrases as "Goodness, remembrance, and love have no end. And the Lord of life holds all who die, and all who mourn." Gerson wrote that particular section of Bush's spirit and soul soon after the attacks on 11 September 2001, and gave Bush the benefit of his theological insight: the attacks were "why God wants you here". He also "lobbied his boss to push forward with plans to spend $15bn on fighting Aids and other diseases", presumably utilising the time-honoured evangelical medicine of abstention until marriage and healthier profits for Glaxo and company. He believes that people will change their minds about the Iraq war once the next three years have given us something bigger to worry about. Having transcribed many of Bush's spiritual representations in a Starbucks near the White House, Gerson now plans to "concentrate on writing", and I am sure we shall all be the richer for it.