New Last Week: The 12-Step Bush Recovery Program by Gene Stone

Sometimes you just have to laugh in order to avoid crying. Alternately, one could say: it would be funny, if it weren’t also true.

From Step 3. Deal With Embarrassment:

Maybe these last few years have been tough, but they could have been worse. After all, my lawn is still green, I can drink my tap water, and the enormous oil derrick spewing vile crap outside my ocean-view window has become very attractive to me. Do I really have a problem?

Each person’s definition of a problem is different. Some people grasp their problem quickly, others don’t. Also, what is a problem to some is not a problem to others. Maintaining objectivity is difficult in this area. Skilled parishioners must always be careful not to judge. However, you have a problem.

The reality is this: no matter the outcome of next week’s election, this part of the problem will be removed. The 12-Step Bush Recovery Program: A Lifesaving Guide to Shaking Off the Horrors of the Last Eight Years, with Practical Advice on Relapse, Remission and Recounts (Villard) is clearly satire. It tweaks the classic 12-step recovery program into a direction never quite before seen. Trenchant essays by talented contributors (Nathan Richardson, John Hartmann, Tony Hendra, others) fill the book out beyond the merely spoofy. This is hard-hitting political satire done up in a way we hope we won’t need to see again for a long, long time. It’s paperback original. It’s slender and it’s cheap. Get it while it’s hot. Because -- may the force be willing -- we won’t need to be laughing at this stuff much longer. And Gene Stone, also the author of The Bush Survival Bible and Duck! The Dick Cheney Survival Bible, will be looking for a new job. Thank God, yes? We’ve been in limbo long enough.