”Ooh no, stop messin’ about!”

According to America's tired old man of letters and Kenneth Williams lookalike, Tom Wolfe:

“Bush is portrayed as a moron. I’ve only conversed with him a couple of times – not for very long – but I found he was more literate on literature than the editor of the New York Review of Books, Bob Silvers. I’ve talked to both of them, and he makes Bob Silvers look like a slug.”

Old age is a terrible thing...

James Wolcott:

I've never had the honor of slinging the literary hash with our unbeloved president, but I did exchange brief hellos with Mr. Silvers at the book party for Gore Vidal's Point to Point Navigation, and "slug" was not the descriptive term I would have chosen. Pertaining to Mr. Silvers, the word doesn't strike me as apt.

I suppose it all depends on one's perspective. Perhaps Mr. Wolfe is still besotted by the iconic image of Mr. Bush in his flyboy gear in the "Mission Accomplished" photo op, with its sonic-boom echoes of Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff. Wolfe in his writing has always had a slavish spot for manly men or reasonable fascimiles thereof who know how to read instrument panels and strike a rakish profile, as opposed to liberal sissies who agonize over which fork to use at the latest Upper East Side dinner party for the undead.