''Goodnight Bush: A Parody'' () is a book by
Gan Golan and
Erich Origen, former employees of
Donald Rumsfeld
Donald Henry Rumsfeld (July 9, 1932 – June 29, 2021) was an American politician, businessman, and naval officer who served as United States Secretary of Defense, secretary of defense from 1975 to 1977 under President Gerald Ford, and again ...
who met while working at a
dot-com.
Published on May 27, 2008, it takes a
satirical
Satire is a genre of the visual arts, visual, literature, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently Nonfiction, non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ...
look back at the presidency of
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician and businessman who was the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Bush family and the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he i ...
, using the popular children's book ''
Goodnight Moon
''Goodnight Moon'' is an American Children's literature, children's book written by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Clement Hurd. It was published on September 3, 1947, and is a highly acclaimed bedtime story.
This book is the second in ...
'' as a jumping off point. Described as a "traumedy" by its authors,
the book touches on issues including
torture
Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons including corporal punishment, punishment, forced confession, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimid ...
,
war for profit, the government's response to
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina was a powerful, devastating and historic tropical cyclone that caused 1,392 fatalities and damages estimated at $125 billion in late August 2005, particularly in the city of New Orleans and its surrounding area. ...
, and the hunt for
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden (10 March 19572 May 2011) was a militant leader who was the founder and first general emir of al-Qaeda. Ideologically a pan-Islamist, Bin Laden participated in the Afghan ''mujahideen'' against the Soviet Union, and support ...
.
The unauthorized parody was submitted unsolicited to the
Little, Brown
Little, Brown and Company is an American publishing company founded in 1837 by Charles Coffin Little and James Brown in Boston. For close to two centuries, it has published fiction and nonfiction by American authors. Early lists featured Emil ...
publishing house in a clear envelope. Although the company had been previously sued for publishing the parody book ''Yiddish with
Dick and Jane
''Dick and Jane'' are the two protagonists created by Zerna Sharp for a series of basal readers written by William S. Gray to teach children to read. The characters first appeared in the ''Elson-Gray Readers'' in 1930 and continued in a subseq ...
'', they decided to publish it under the
fair use
Fair use is a Legal doctrine, doctrine in United States law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to bal ...
doctrine of
copyright law
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, e ...
.
Set in a
situation room, the story follows President Bush, who appears as a grinning figure in a flight suit
as he prepares for bed. Other characters include
Dick Cheney
Richard Bruce Cheney ( ; born January 30, 1941) is an American former politician and businessman who served as the 46th vice president of the United States from 2001 to 2009 under President George W. Bush. He has been called vice presidency o ...
as a grumpy figure sitting in a rocking chair with a shotgun (a reference to the
Dick Cheney hunting incident,
and Osama bin Laden as a scurrying mouse, parodying the Bush administration's failure to capture him.
Unlike the original book, which proceeds from 7pm to 8:10pm, the clock on the nightstand is stuck at
9:11,
with the three bears in chairs replaced by "war profiteers giving three cheers".
The book was well-received on its release, with reviewers commenting not only on its humor but also on its close resemblance to ''Goodnight Moon'' in terms of illustrations, rhyming scheme, and even its smell, which was due to the reuse of the original ink and paper.
However, many reviewers also pointed to the dark content of the book, which ends with the
U.S. Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It superseded the Articles of Confederation, the nation's first constitution, on March 4, 1789. Originally including seven articles, the Constituti ...
in tatters and full of crayoned
redaction
Redaction or sanitization is the process of removing sensitive information from a document so that it may be distributed to a broader audience. It is intended to allow the selective disclosure of information. Typically, the result is a document ...
s,
a scale balancing
church and state
The separation of church and state is a philosophical and Jurisprudence, jurisprudential concept for defining political distance in the relationship between religious organizations and the State (polity), state. Conceptually, the term refers to ...
leaning wholly towards "church",
and a final goodnight to "failures everywhere".
References
External links
Official Website
2008 non-fiction books
American non-fiction books
Books about George W. Bush
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