"Who in the heck wants to be a war president? I don't." In many a slip of the tongue a truth is revealed. He doesn't want the job. Georgie is bored.

It's the only thing that can explain the way he talks: the weird non-sequiturs and syntactical somersaults.

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful. . .

They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."

(Washington, 5 August 2004. ) "I can't wait to join you in the joy of welcoming neighbours back into neighbourhoods, and small businesses up and running, and cutting those ribbons that somebody is creating new jobs." (Mississippi, 5 September 2005. ) "The relations with, ahh . . . Europe are important relations, and they've, ahh . . . because, we do share values. And, they're universal values, they're not American values or, you know . . . European values, they're universal values. And those values . . .

ahh . . . being universal, ought to be applied everywhere."

(At an EU press conference, Washington, 20 June 2005. ) Some people say he's clueless. But that's not the problem. He's bored. It's obvious. Like he's been bored before. Daddy bought him a baseball team.

Georgie got bored. Got the governorship of Texas.

Bored again. The Big Job beckoned. Fun for a while.

But he'd rather be vacationing on his ranch, like he usually is.

It's not all his fault. It's just what happens. US presidents in their second term start to look a bit saggy. The term-limit regulation means the end is nigh. You're planning your memoirs. You're playing a lot of golf. You're making a lot of speeches so you don't have to attend the funerals of all those soldiers.

"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job." (To Michael Brown, boss of the Federal effort against Hurricane Katrina, as 1,100 Louisianans died and New Orleans was wrecked, 2 September 2005. ) "The good news is . . . out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house . . . he's lost his entire house . . . there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch." (2 September 2005. ) "My thoughts are, we're going to get somebody who knows what they're talking about when it comes to rebuilding cities." (2 September 2005. ) "It's devastating, it's got to be doubly devastating on the ground." (Surveying hurricane damage from Air Force One, 31 August 2005. ) "I'm looking forward to a good night's sleep on the soil of a friend." (Anticipating a visit to Denmark, Washington DC, 29 June 2005. ) Meanwhile, he struts around doing thumbs-ups for the cameras. But nobody's fooled. He's just going through the motions.

Remember that middleaged couple you saw on holiday, just sitting there at dinnertime with sod all to say? That's Georgie and America. It's not that he doesn't love her any more;

it's just that the spark has gone. Let's face it, when you've lost one of your major cities to raw sewage and mould, you've kinda lost that lovin' feelin'.

But the journalists adore him. Can't get enough.

Georgie don't care. He's so bored, he's quotable. "It seemed like to me they based some of their decisions on the word of . . .

and the allegations by . . .

people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble . . .

that means not tell the truth." (On an Amnesty report on Guantanamo Bay, Washington, 31 May 2005. ) "We discussed the importance of a democracy in the greater Middle East in order to leave behind a peaceful tomorrow." (Tblisi, 10 May 2005. ) You'll have noticed the peaceful tomorrow being left behind in Iraq just now.

But then he's not much of an expert on the region, our George. Say "Sunni and Shia." He'll say "I Got You Babe."

We should ask, in 2006, who's really running this dismal show. Because the best hope for the world in the year to come is that Georgie rediscovers his one great talent: getting bored out of his tits and walking away. Let's hope it happens soon.

Joe O'Connor's 'Star of the Sea' is published by Vintage.

He is a 2006 Creative Writing Fellow at the New York Public Library