The Great Bushini

Program note for an upcoming lifetime achievement award presentation hosted by the Association of Illusionists and Magicians:

AIM takes great pleasure in presenting its highest honor to America’s foremost magician and illusionist - The Great Bushini. For the past five years, under the management of Karl Rove and White House Productions, The Great Bushini has performed some of the most amazing magic tricks in the history of American political legerdemain. Some even say that he has achieved the golden standard of political prestidigitation by fooling most of the people all of the time.

The Great Bushini had achieved some regional notoriety in the state of Texas in the late 1990s. However, he first achieved national fame in the fall of 2000 with an astonishing sleight of hand. In full view of the national media, Bushini was able to turn a half million vote deficit into a presidential victory using only his brother and five members of the Supreme Court. To this day, most Americans have no idea how he performed this remarkable feat.

But that was only the beginning for America’s Conjurer in Chief. By the next year, he was performing never before seen number tricks that left his audiences gasping in disbelief. Perhaps his most awe-inspiring numerical stunt was to turn a $300 billion surplus into a $450 billion deficit using only rhetoric and selective tax cuts for the wealthy.

Some say Bushini’s greatest illusion occurred in 2003. Despite all evidence to the contrary, he was able to convince most Americans of the existence of terrorist links and weapons of mass destruction that were never there. Certain observers suspect that Bushini is also a master hypnotist since even today some Americans still believe those links and weapons exist.

That spectacular performance was followed by an even greater magical feat. Landing on an aircraft carrier in full flight uniform, The Great Bushini spoke the magic words "mission accomplished" and made a war disappear. People still marvel at how he instantly transformed a state of war into a mere ongoing insurgency even though superficially it looked as if nothing had really changed.

Today Bushini is still confounding and confusing audiences from coast to coast. Last year, despite seeming impossible odds, he was once again able to pull another presidential victory out of an electoral hat.

While it is true that The Great Bushini is getting older and his reflexes are waning, he continues to work his magic. For example, even though some members of Congress had secured Social Security in a lockbox, Bushini was somehow able to release it and open it up for debate.

His subsequent failed attempt to make Social Security disappear does little to tarnish his magical reputation. Although some say that this latest trick cannot be done, those who have followed The Great Bushini’s career know that nothing is impossible for America’s greatest conjurer.