Bush: It's 'liberating' to be out of office! Heh heh heh!

[Newsbot]

ARTESIA, N.M. – It was a humbling moment for the former commander in chief: President George W. Bush was walking former first dog Barney in his new Dallas neighborhood when it stopped in a neighbor's yard for relief.

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"And there I was, former president of the United States of 'Merica, with a plastic bag on my hand," he told a group of graduating high school students in New Mexico on Thursday. "Life is returning back to normal. Heh heh heh." He added that the owner of the house yelled, "Hey, get your goddamned dog off my lawn," at which point Bush responded, "It's not my fault, heh heh heh," and sent his secret service bodyguards to kidnap the owner of the home and ship him to Afghanistan for waterboarding.

Bush, in one of his few public appearances since leaving office in January, told the students that leaving office lifted a heavy burden. "I had to carry Dick Cheney at times. Not because he couldn't walk, but he just liked making me do it. Heh heh heh."

"I no longer feel that great sense of responsibility that I had when I was in the Oval Office. And frankly, it's a liberating feeling," he told seniors from Artesia High School. "Always having Cheney and Rummy breathing down my neck. Now, I can just sit around in my underwear, snort some blow, and play Grand Theft Auto. Heh heh heh."

He received a warm welcome in the southeastern New Mexico community, the Roswell Daily Record reported. Bush declined interviews and no video cameras were allowed inside. This is, however, not unusual in Roswell, where the government routinely prohibits videotaping to protect the identity of the seven alien kids enrolled in the school.

The crowd gave him multiple standing ovations and after his speech he was presented with a sculpture of an eagle taking flight from a torch. The sculpture will be dedicated at City Hall on Memorial Day in honor of Bush and America's veterans, apparently by someone who doesn't see the irony in honoring Bush and veterans in the same tribute.

Bush invoked an Iraq veteran's story to motivate the students to continue their educations. He described visiting Army Staff Sgt. Christian Bagge, a soldier from Oregon who lost both legs in combat.

When he visited Bagge at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Bush told him that someday Bagge would get out of his bed and run.

Then, one day, an aide went into Bush's office and said Bagge was waiting on the South Lawn and wanted to go running with the president.

If Bagge could do that, Bush told the students: "You can go to college. Hell, I was just jokin' with the guy. I didn't expect him to come to the White House to kick my ass once he got the leg transplant. And if a joke like that can come true, a joke like you losers goin' to college can, too. Heh heh heh."

Bush said he hoped President Barack Obama's administration would be successful. "I just hope Joe Biden ain't bossing him around too much. They don't tell y'all kids here, but the Veep is the one in charge. Cheney told me that. Heh heh heh." He also said he was writing a book about some of the difficult decisions he made while in office. He had hoped to be finished last Tuesday drawing the pictures so that someone else could write the words, but he broke his red crayon, and he'll have to get a replacement before he can finish.