President Bush VS. The Mickey Mouse Club

After the shock of Big Brother 8's final HOH competition last night there was one last surprise for our television-softened brains... a special announcement from President Bush.

America's current HOH (to use the appropriate Big Brother terminology) appeared on screen, looking a bit withered under the thick fabric of his expensive suit. The creases in his face stood out more than I remembered, his eyes a tad weary, all of it seeming to speak to his trials and the weight of his burden... the facade was thin though. His opening line was constructed in marketing & speech writing labs to stir up feelings of pride and the growing pains of a grand democratic adventure. If he'd been able to deliver the speech without pausing at every break in the teleprompter I may have taken his words with a smaller grain of salt. As it stands though - it's quite apparent that President Bush has absolutely no opinion on the course of action in Iraq, has no internal connection to the words he muttered to hundreds of millions of television fans and lacks the intellectual prowess to address anyone - much less an entire nation - from the heart. It seemed like President Bush was a hand puppet, thrust in front of a nation to explain the actions of his handlers.

It was all eerily reminiscent of Britney Spears' latest fall from grace (or maybe, further fall from grace) at the MTV VMA's. Like President Bush, Britney has been groomed for the public eye her entire life. Since childhood she's endured makeup and bright lights, dance training and lip-syncing classes - all culminating in the past 7 years of super stardom on the pop culture stage. Since childhood George W. Bush has learned the ins-and-outs of corrupt political machinations from the first-family of corruption. His grandfather was aligned with Nazis and involved in an attempted coup during the Roosevelt administration, his father practically created the blackhole that is the modern day CIA and NSA, and he himself rigged business deals and played with oil money and handshake bailouts his entire professional career. So perhaps it isn't surprising that the unstable house of cards both of these celebrities have built are crumbling under the weight of the actual responsibilities required to be successful.

It does smack of the question, am I being paranoid when asking if this fall from grace is just as rigged as the presidential elections? Both Georgie and Britney are shuffled around by teams of professional image managers, all of their decisions are made for them, not by them. Just as Bush's initial Cabinet was stocked with marketing men and business leaders, ready to pull strings and implement their economic homicide - Britney's entourage is stocked with leeches and magic-makers, ready to coach the last bits of talent (and profit) from Brit's battered body.

I think it's time to say that Britney needs to stop playing the sexy starlet, and maybe focus on having a real life for the first time in decades... And George Bush needs to stop playing President, and start allowing people with the real ideas and real experience (and maybe the ability to deliver a speech from memory, not a poorly read teleprompter) to hold the reigns.