During his convention speech, George W. Bush didn’t smirk once. It was remarkable. I wondered whether he’d had a botox injection to keep his upper lip from curling into that old familiar sneer. He was undoubtedly coached to avoid smirking, but I didn’t think he could do that for a whole long speech.

Now I’m wondering how he avoided blushing during his speech. He said this about John Kerry’s proposals:

there are some things my opponent is for—he’s proposed more than two trillion dollars in new federal spending so far, and that’s a lot, even for a senator from Massachusetts.

Today the Washington Post reports that Bush’s convention speech promises carry a three trillion dollar price tag:

A staple of Bush’s stump speech is his claim that his Democratic challenger, John F. Kerry, has proposed $2 trillion in long-term spending, a figure the Massachusetts senator’s campaign calls exaggerated. But the cost of the new tax breaks and spending outlined by Bush at the GOP convention far eclipses that of the Kerry plan.

We know how Bush will pay for his promises: send the bill to the kids and grandkids.

I don’t think I could run for President. I would blush.

Politics is a nasty business. No one should expect to run against a tough character like George W. Bush without getting roughed up a little.

To illustrate: here’s a political ad parody from MAD magazine. (I found this via Heli’s Heaven and Hell blog.)