If you missed the footage of the 12-year-old Florida boy who sleepily shared a stage with George W. Bush, you can view it
here (or read about it, and see some still photos from it,
here).
It's very funny, which was why it made the
"Late Show with David Letterman": While the President drones on from the podium, the young man standing a few feet behind him in khaki shorts, a black polo shirt and an orange baseball cap goes through some jaw-unhinging yawns (without covering his mouth because his hands are in his back pockets), lolls his head around to loosen up a stiff neck, claps and yawns, claps and checks his watch and yawns; and then, as things grow progressively more desperate for him, engages in must-stay-awake stretch exercises; takes a knee for a time; and ultimately seems to fall asleep while standing, only partially waking up when the applause starts again -- at which point he smiles sleepily and claps with everyone else.
Pretty amusing stuff, right?
Wrong!
There is
no laughing at the President of the United States!
CNN the following morning picked up the Letterman footage, for fun, but then began to assert it had heard from the White House the footage was fake. Letterman responded in outrage;
CNN then backpedaled, saying the footage was real -- and also now denying that it had ever heard from the White House. Letterman's website
counters that "our source, a very good source, confirms the White House DID call
CNN." Who to belive? Me, I'd say "Letterman" has the
better ethics track record.
So what started out as a chuckle becomes yet another weird suggestion that no criticism of any kind, not even a 12-year-old's yawn, can slip unchallenged beneath the Bush-Cheney radar. The good news is that, rather than destroy this particular critic (who apparently had the good sense of proportion to have
laughed uproariously when shown his own antics), the White House is chucking him under the chin and adopting him.
As
The Washington Post reports today, "The White House, trying to get out in front of the Yawning Boy story, is now in charge of media access to the young man."
He's even going on "Letterman" tonight -- because as White House assistant press secretary Reed Dickens tells
The Post, "He's a young person who strongly supports the president and is excited about getting a chance to talk about it."
As to the fun at the President's expense, Dickens adds, "We think it's all in good nature, very good-humored."
Sure, that's what they say
now. But the boy's father -- Richard Crotty, the chairman of Orange County, Florida, and a major Bush
fund-raiser -- was initially pretty uneasy. An
Orlando Sentinel columnist who spoke with him
reports dad was "more than a bit anxious about the incident":
"I accept full responsibility for that," Crotty
told Sentinel columnist Scott Maxwell. "His mother was out of town, and I let him stay up too late. I should have prepped him better." (To which Maxwell
replies incredulously, "
Prepped him? Come on, chairman. He's a 12-year-old, not Karl Rove.")
Letterman's
take, meanwhile: "This whole thing just smells. Doesn't it smell a little bit?"
"I mean, it just seems all just a little too tidy, just a little too neat. And now, the guy, the kid in Florida -- and his old man -- was really upset in the beginning. ... Well, now everybody down there loves it. Everybody couldn't be happier; everybody thought it was hilarious. So you see, it's just a little too tidy. Stuff like this never ends happily, certainly not happily for me. I was waiting for the lawsuit, I was waiting to be arrested, I was waiting to be beaten to a pulp, and now, oh ... we couldn't be happier."
