Obliviously On He Sails: The Bush Administration in Rhyme
There's nothing for improving a satirist's form like having a good target. Case in point:New Yorkerregular Trillin, whose earlier verse sampler,Deadline Poet(1994), was mostly less amusing than last year's political cartoons. The present presidential administration, led as it is by the least articulate politician in living memory (as Trillin notes, "W" is no Dan Quayle), seems heaven sent for satire, however, and Trillin rises to its benison. In 12 topical sections, each including a prose page of "backgrounding," as the bureaucrats say, he offers couplets, quatrains, and songs on the Bush-Cheney ticket (remember that movieThe Nanny?); the 2000 campaign; the "supporting cast" (from Ashcroft to Boykin to Powell); the administration's corporate-criminal and lobbyist pals; and the many facets of the War against Terrorism, Saddam Hussein, the Axis of Evil, . . . whatever. Trillin so wryly yet accurately reflects the deep feelings of so many Americans that his rhymes may come to constitute a critical introduction for students of these times.Ray OlsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved