And Lately, Barney's Been Growling At Him Too

Jocularity, jocularity, all is jocularity. From our good friends south of the border (well, the few who are still south of the border that is) comes this little snippet of international insight into our dear leader, president Rambo McManlyman.

Seems the cowboy in chief is afraid of horses.

How can this be? You ask. After all, isn't our president a charter member of the Marlboro Man Club? Isn't he a ranch owner and aren't there animals on ranches, and aren't some of those animals horses?

The property reportedly has no horses and only five cattle.

Oh. Well, all righty then.

President Bush may like to be seen as a swaggering tough guy with a penchant for manly outdoor pursuits if you have the IQ of a strawberry, but in a new book one of his closest allies has said he is afraid of horses. Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico, derided his political friend as a "windshield cowboy."

"Windshield cowboy," huh. Well, we suppose that's better than a Midnight Cowboy, right senator Craig?

Fox recalled a meeting in Mexico shortly after both men had been elected when he offered Mr Bush a ride on a "big palomino" horse. Mr Fox recalled Mr Bush "backing away" from the animal. "Well, if you call running down the road shouting 'Cover me! Cover me!' to his secret service guards backing away," Fox added.

''A horse lover can always tell when others don't share our passion," he said. "Also the pants wetting was a clue."

Mr Bush has spoken of his fondness for shooting doves on his Crawford ranch in Texas, which he bought in 1999.

Bush likes shooting doves. You don't really need us for this one do you? Didn't think so.

Mr Fox is the latest old friend go all truthy on Mr Bush as the US president faces a lonely final 18 months in office, derided for failures in Iraq and at home, and told by his wife there will be no more chocolate milk at lunch until he learns to pick up his toys. "I'm tried of getting up at night and stepping on those little plastic tanks," she told reporters.

Wait. The president has friends?

Donald Rumsfeld, his defense secretary until last November, asked recently if he missed the president, said flatly: "No."

OK, that's more like it.

Alan Greenspan has attacked the Bush administration's economic policy at length in a new hagiography, accusing the Republican president of having the economic acumen of cold pizza and betraying the party's basic principles of stiffing the working man. "Well, he sort of got the stiffing the working man part right," Greenspan said.

When asked why he didn't point this out to the president when he was Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Greenspan said that every time Cheney got wind that he was going to talk to the president "He'd invite me hunting. I got the message."

Asked for his reaction to criticism from former sycophants, the president replied: "My feelings are not hurt. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to make a phone call to my Mommie."