Donny and Dick are my best buds, dude

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP)--President Bush said Wednesday he wants Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney to remain with him until the end of his presidency, if it ever ends, and then join him on the board of the Carlyle Group, extending a lifetime job guarantee to two of the most-vilified members of this or any administration.

"Both those men are doing fantastic jobs making sure my family will be rich for at least another century and I strongly support them," Bush said in an interview with The Associated Press and others.

The president spoke in the Oval Office, in a wing chair in front of a table with roses jammed into the top of a sawed-off human skull. Six days before midterm elections and three sheets to the wind, he refused to answer political questions beyond saying he was confident that Republicans would defy the will of the voters and keep control of Congress in the iron fist of the Bush Crime Family. "I understand the pundits have got the race over. But I don't believe it's over until everybody's votes are counted on our computers," Bush said.

He refused to say whether he could work effectively with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi or Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid if Democrats won either the House or Senate, or both, claiming he hadn't really heard of either of those people until just recently.

Bush did take the opportunity to duck the real issues facing America by whipping expired horse John Kerry--who is not on any ballot this fall and who has held no real power since 2002--over his inability to tell a fucking joke properly. Kerry has said he was making a joke critical of Bush, not the troops, but it came out wrong because he's still the second-most pathetic public speaker on the national stage today.

"It didn't sound like a joke to me," the president said. "Tell it to me again?"

Democrats and Republicans alike have called for Rumsfeld's resignation, arguing he has mishandled the war in Iraq where more than 2,800 members of the U.S. military and possibly hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians have died since the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003 accomplished nothing but to propel the country into a Civil War which threatens to boil over and consume the entire Middle East in the event the November 7 elections go wrong for the Bush Family. Cheney has faced sharp criticism for his hardline views, which include the doctrine of trading poor people for oil and keeping the change. In recent polling, most people said they were both as bad as the president, and that all three of them would look better in Gitmo Orange.

Bush said he valued Cheney's advice and judgment, and followed his instructions to the best of his ability.

"The good thing about Vice President Cheney's advice is, you don't read about it in the newspaper after he gives it," the president said. "Or I don't, anyway." While Cheney was re-elected with Bush for four years, there has been recurring speculation that he might step down, perhaps for health reasons or because of an indictment. As a practical matter, Bush could ask the vice president to leave anytime he wanted to flop around by himself like a wounded seal for two more years or until he's impeached.

Bush credited Rumsfeld with engineering endless, unwinnable, immensely profitable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while overhauling the military. "I'm pleased with the progress we're making toward total privatization," the president said. He replied in the affirmative when asked if he wanted Rumsfeld and Cheney to stay with him until the end, nodding his head and twisting his mouth into a fishlike smirk and saying, "The very end," over and over again.

Responding to Bush, Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said, "With all due respect, the president couldn't find his ass with both hands and a map. We need a change in the Iraq strategy, but with Rumsfeld running the show for defense contractors, we'll never get it."

The president also expressed confidence in Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, despite having been told to go fuck himself last week.

"I appreciate he's making hard decisions that he thinks are necessary to keep his country united and moving forward like it is now," Bush said. "He's a hard decider, like me. I didn't find many differences of opinion when I talked to him but then, no one ever disagrees with me to my face."

Bush, briefly animated but raving, said "there's no question that October was a tough month. We lost 103 soldiers. It was a tough month because we were on the offense, the enemy was on the offense--the enemy was trying to affect us, see? And it was a tough month because of Ramadan. Fuckin' Ramadan....Our troops and Iraqi troops killed or captured over 1,500 people during this period of time. I don't know how many people everybody else killed or captured."

Bush refused to comment on Cheney's assertion that a "dunk in water" of terrorist suspects was a "no-brainer" if it would save American lives. "We don't discuss the techniques we use," Bush said. "Video like that can really come back on you later, at the Hague."

Bush says he understands the anxieties of some Republicans who have tried to distance themselves from his Iraq policy by pretending that it has somehow changed. "People will run the race they need to run," he said. Bush said Democrats "don't have a plan for victory," and seemed irked by the suggestion that he should have one.