He gets by with a little help from his friends.

George W. Bush has not exactly been distinguishing himself with his choice of play dates recently. First he brought Tom DeLay, who is about as popular as gonorrhea right now with the American public, along with him on his No, Really, Dismantling Social Security Is A Good Idea '05 tour. An odd choice, but maybe a shrewd one strategically, since compared to DeLay, anything looks good, even Bush's fakakta privatization dreams.

Few on the right raised any hackles at that, since after all, DeLay is as pure as the driven snow and is merely the victim of a left-wing smear campaign. But oddly enough, even some of Bush's most ardent fans took issue with his other houseguest this week, from the knobs at The Corner to Michelle "All The Brown People Suck Except Me" Malkin.



What I want to know is, where the crap do these people get off acting surprised that Bush is holding hands with Crown Prince Abdullah? Is the evidence documenting Bush's Saudi ties not utterly exhaustive enough for them yet? The only person in the past five years who didn't know Bush was buddy-buddy with the Saudis was Terri Schiavo, and well, she had a pretty good excuse.

But it's really interesting how neocons like Malkin and the Cornerites (hey! that sounds like the worst band ever!) fell all over themselves pushing Bush for re-election in '04 and are now expressing some degree of surprise and dismay at . . . stuff he'd already been doing for his entire first term. Palling around with the Saudis? I am shocked, shocked! Spending money like there's no tomorrow? Why, we had no idea he was going to do that! Oh, the hell you didn't. I would tell these folks that they can't play dumb like that anymore, but honestly, I don't see how you can be sure they're playing.

Anyway. At least Bush is done with the singles scene now, and good for him.