Garrison Keillor: Good to see you, Mr. President. Thank you for dropping in.
Tim Russell (BUSH): Thank you for having me. Lot of radio shows been turning me down late. I tried to get on the Don Imus show and they said I'd be too divisive.
GK: Well, you're always welcome here, Mr. President. I mean, you're still President, right?
TR (BUSH): That's what they tell me. Elected by a majority of American people at one time. Ohio. Gotta love that state. That's up here, right?
GK: Just east of here.
TR (BUSH): Knew it was up here. You get disorientated flying around in Air Force One, you know.
GK: We noticed that.
TR (BUSH): Great plane. You got your own office there. Big desk. Swivel seat. Don't have to turn off electronic devices. Ever. And people come in and salute and they bring you stuff. You've got movies, anything you want, and if you don't like one, you just switch to another. Sometimes on my way out to the ranch, I watch twenty or thirty movies. Fast-forward them. Two at a time.
GK: What is the desk for, if you don't mind my asking?
TR (BUSH): President's gotta have a desk. Gotta sit behind a desk.
GK: But don't you read a lot of reports and memos and that sort of thing?
TR (BUSH): You know, when you're taking direction from the Lord and when your presidency is in His Hands -- you can pretty much skip all those reports and just trust Him to do the leading.
GK: So you don't read reports...
TR (BUSH): I don't like to get into it. Too time consuming. Like all those reports from Baghdad. They just keep coming. If you start reading those you'd never stop. So I don't start.
GK: Interesting.
TR (BUSH): And we are making progress in the war. Some would have us cut and run but that would do a disservice to our brave service personnel who have made so many sacrifices there. And that's why we're going to stay until we get the job done.
GK: Okay.
TR (BUSH): It's like mom's meatloaf. She'd put that stuff in front of us and we'd have to stay there until we got the job done.
GK: So you ate the meatloaf.
TR (BUSH): No I didn't. The dog ate the meatloaf. Snuck it onto my lap and he got the job done.
GK: So what brings you to Minnesota, Mr. President?
TR (BUSH): How does it look if I turn my head slightly? Is this better? Or is this?
GK: Don't worry about it.
TR (BUSH): I don't look cocky, do I? Laura tells me I look cocky when I talk. Trying to fix that.
GK: You're fine. What brings you to town, Mr. President?
TR (BUSH): I am looking for a czar to oversee the entire war on terrorism. A man to be in charge of the whole shootin match.
GK: I see. And once you find him, what will your job be?
TR (BUSH): This czar will report to me and tell me about progress he's making and then I will report to the American people. As I am doing right now. -- How did that look? Are my eyebrows being realistic?
GK: And you think you're going to find a czar in Minnesota?
TR (BUSH): No, I'm going to have my czar start out by running Minnesota and get some practice here before he goes over to the Middle East. Start slow, that's my motto.
GK: You looked kind of shifty-eyed as you were saying that, Mr. President--
TR (BUSH): I sort of had that feeling -- shifty-eyed, huh? Sort of what you might call weaselish?
GK: There was a weaselly quality to it, yes.
TR (BUSH): Was it more weasel-like in quality, or more like a marmot? I should know this.
GK: I think it was more marmot.
TR (BUSH): Dang. Well thanks for the feedback. How's your show doing by the way? Don't see much about it in the news--
GK: We're trying to keep it that way.
TR (BUSH): Well, come and take a ride on Air Force One, sometime. We go all over the place. Anywhere you want to go. You ever been to Europe?
GK: Yes, I have in fact.
TR (BUSH): They all speak English over there. You know that? Never had a language problem in Europe. Just here in America.
GK: Well, you keep working on it.
TR (BUSH): That's what I tell Laura. It's a work in progress. It ain't over til it's over.
GK: I guess so.
TR (BUSH): First thing when this czar takes over in Minnesota, we're gonna combine all of these states together -- the Dakotas, Wisconsin, Iowa, these other states up here -- combine it into one state called Minnesconsinstan -- and we're going to run it out of here and -- say, you folks got electricity and water and everything here?
GK: Yes, sir.
TR (BUSH): You got it every day? All day?
GK: All day and all night.
TR (BUSH): Well, that may change. Anyway-- good talking to you.
GK: Good talking to you, sir.
TR (BUSH): Okay, now before you broadcast this show, I want to hear what I said about making progress in Iraq, okay?
GK: It already went out.
TR (BUSH): You already put that out?
GK: It's gone.
TR (BUSH): What did I say? Did I say we're going to stay or did I give the speech about getting out?
GK: You said we're going to stay.
TR (BUSH): Oh. Okay. Then that's what we'll do. Hey, you wanna be our terrorism czar?
GK: Not really, no. Thank you, Mr. President.