
In this video game based on George W. Bush’s yet-to-be-released book, the 43rd president is your avatar so, unlike most video games, this one does not start at level one. You begin at Level 13. From there you encounter people and situations requiring you to make decisions that will drop you down to the lower echelons. The savviest players will be able to plunge into sub-zero levels previously explored and understood only by George W. Bush himself.
You’ll start your journey as a young George born to an aristocratic political family in New Haven, Connecticut. See how quickly you can get through Houston’s public elementary schools, then Phillips Academy prep school in Andover, and move on to Yale and Harvard. Find out what decisions you must make to become a prep-school cheerleader and a face-busting rugger. Who must you befriend to lead you on a path to alcoholism and drug abuse? What are the lessons you learned in business school that you must unlearn later in order to bankrupt your first oil company? What baseball managers and what player trades must you approve as a managing partner of the Texas Rangers to make them a lower-tier baseball team that turns you a $15,000,000 profit when you sell your interest?
Learn how to avoid Vietnam and your obligations to the Texas Air National Guard that you joined to keep you out of the jungle.
Who do you choose as a mentor when embarking on a political career? Do you choose the honest agent or the evil, squinty-eyed, rotund man who promises you votes, votes and more votes by whatever means necessary?
Should you agonize over moral standards like hard work, honesty, compassion and fairness or move glibly ahead in pursuit of large campaign donations from evil greedheads?
What must you do as governor of Texas to make your state the most polluted in the nation?
Once president, how quickly must you act to reward your “base” with federal budget busting tax cuts that plunge the country into decades of debt?
Feel the vacuum forming in your head as you read The Pet Goat to elementary school children just as the country is attacked by al Qaeda on September 11th.
Observe the minion from Hell disguised as the human known as Dick Cheney emerge from a deep dark hole in the Badlands of Wyoming. Feel your mind erode as he rips the remaining shreds of decency from your receding brain matter and convinces you that the Geneva Conventions are for pussies and that due process and the right to privacy are reserved for idealistic fools.
It is at this point where you must make decisions that common men are incapable of comprehending. How do you convince people in spite of the evidence and what you know to be true that invading a secular country in the Middle East that had nothing to do with the 9-11 attacks is the right thing to do?
Yes it’s a game, and if you can meld minds with George W. Bush in your quest to descend to the lowest levels of human existence ever imagined, you too can know what it’s like to be the WORST PRESIDENT EVER!