George W. Bush was confused.

It certainly wasn't the first time. He was muttering a sullen response to a reporter's question about some big new study.

He was saying no, he really didn't believe that it was possible that the disastrous U.S. invasion of Iraq had resulted in the brutal deaths of more than half a million Iraqi civilians, about 650,000, or 2.5 percent of the entire Iraq population, or one heckuva lot more jelly beans than you could fit into that giant glass jar at the county fair.

Wait, what? Where did that last part come from? Did he just say that out loud? Check the icky media people: No one was looking at him strangely.

No reporters were dialing their cell phones in a delirious rush to call their editors with a crazy new Dubya quote. OK. Whew. Must have been in his head. Thank goodness.

Back to business. No, he told the reporter, he could not believe that 650K number, partly because one of his top generals said that number was probably all wrong and that the real number was probably closer to 30,000 or 50,000, even though the general had no real research to back that up and even though this general is one of the best yes-men money can buy.

Not that George was actually thinking any of that, exactly. That would be far too complicated. But he could feel the negativity coming at him like a dank breeze, a nasty mosquito in his ear, a hot rash on his skin. And man, he was itchy.

Oh no, he thought. It was happening again. He was saying one thing to the press but his mind was drifting over to something else, this time back to his silver-spooned youth, how he used to stare longingly at that giant jar at the county fair every year.

The one filled to the brim with colorful jelly beans and you paid the big scary guy a dollar and you got to take a guess as to just how many jelly beans there were and if your guess was the closest, you won the whole thing. Wow!

50,000? 500,000? How could he possibly guess? It was a lot of jelly beans, that's for sure. He wanted that jar so bad. He could eat them all in a few days, easy! Jeb would beg for some and George would maybe let him have just a few.

But only if Jeb knelt down before him and kissed his shoes and told George he was the greatest brother ever and even then he'd only let Jeb eat the little brown ones, which George didn't even like anyway. Ha! Oh, the power of it.

But OK, this was a little different. This death toll thing, he didn't really know how to process it.

Why were the reporters all staring at him like that? After all, there was no way to guess, no victory jar of jelly beans to haul home in satisfied glee. Who would want a giant jar full of dead Iraqis?

He couldn't even eat them. And where would he put such a thing? In the bedroom? The kitchen? Laura would be furious.

Wait wait, what was he thinking? Must ... focus. Must get back to reality.

The reporters waited, but George's mind could not clear. What does half a million bodies look like, anyway? Certainly not like jelly beans. Where do those Iraqi people put them all? Was Iraq big enough to hold them all? Wait, of course it was. Wasn't it?

George didn't know. But one thing was certain: It sure sounded like a lot of dead bodies. He heaved a sigh. How could he possibly be responsible for the deaths of so many people? Answer: He couldn't be. No way. Not with God on his side.

It was all so confusing. After all, there are so many numbers dancing in his head: dead soldiers, crippling deficits, mounting scandals, congressional seats about to be lost to the Democrats, days left until he can retire to the ranch and go back to hacking at dead sticks with a chainsaw and sipping lemonade on the porch.

And until then, there was one more historic number now looming over his head like a dark cloud of savage karmic pain.

It was this: To date, 2,763 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq (not counting over 20,000 who've been wounded, maimed, crippled -- thinking about them just makes Bush's head hurt. I mean, how do you count the damaged jelly beans? You can't!). In contrast, 2,973 died in the Sept. 11 attack.

Put another way, very soon Bush's vicious and unprovoked war will have claimed more American lives than the Sept. 11 terrorists.

It was one of those thoughts. One of those damnable pieces of fact that drove George absolutely crazy, and so he blocked it out and refused to let anyone mention these sorts of "facts" in his presence.

This is why he hated hated hated these damnable reporters and their damnable questions about science and jelly beans and death. Too bad he can't just flip them all off like Uncle Dick and go for a beer. Man, what he wouldn't give!

But he was stuck. He had to answer. The mosquitoes of ugly truth buzzed around his ear; the itch was omnipresent.

The death toll in Iraq shows no sign of slowing. If the violence in Iraq continues to escalate, it's possible that within a few years the Iraqi death toll will surpass a million people. A million! The biggest jar of jelly beans he'd ever seen!

Wait, no. Not jelly beans. Dead people. He had to remember that.

Not that George fully believed it. Not that he could possibly comprehend. But there it was.

What did these damn reporters expect from him? Death is not pretty! You can't buy the answer for a dollar! The jelly beans cannot really be counted! Wait, can they?

Mark Morford/SF Gate

tags: iraq  deaths  invasion  occupation  bush  satire  zeitgeist  

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