Former President George W. Bush may not have been universally well-liked when he resided in the White House, but the guy has somehow managed to become endearing to both conservatives and liberals in the years that have since passed. Chalk it up to his innocuous painting hobby, friendship with Michelle Obama, or just the current, toxic administration in general — but these days even Aziz Ansari is wistfully remembering the second President Bush through rose-tinted glasses.
During his Jimmy Kimmel Live appearance Thursday night, President Bush continued to charm when asked about how he felt about comedians doing impressions of him when he was in office — most famously by Will Ferrell on Saturday Night Live. Unlike our current thin-skinned president, President Bush didn’t mind having fun poked at him at all. He even went so far as to admit that the line between Real George W. Bush and Fake George W. Bush sometimes blurred.
So you wanna hear something terrible? So I had dinner with Lorne Michaels, the head of Saturday Night Live, and he said, “So I put a great speech writer on you, and he came up with strategery.” And I said, “Wait a minute, I said strategery.” And he said, “No, you didn’t say strategery.” I said, “I damn sure said strategery!” He said, “We invested it.” I said, “Well let me ask you this, did he come up with misunderestimate?”
Clearly, even now Bush still has a good sense of humor about himself, and for the record, “misunderestimate” was indeed 100 percent his. As for his favorite impression, he names comedian Steve Bridges who once appeared alongside him at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, but is sadly no longer with us. “I love humor,” he told Kimmel, “And the best humor is when you make fun of yourself.” Hey! Maybe we should all lead by Bush’s example.
