by Michael Tomasky , the Daily Beast

On the Hardball set last night, Matthews told me that George W. Bush, on November 1, i.e. five days before the election, is giving a speech in.the Cayman Islands! It’s true.

What is he thinking? I guess he’s thinking first and foremost that he’s going to pocket $2 million or whatever it is they’re paying him (it’s an investment summit of some kind). But hasn’t he sort of noticed that overseas tax shelters in general and the Cayman Islands specifically have become campaign issues, and liabilities for the standard-bearer of his party?

It’s not even just about Romney; Bush may or may not give a crap about him. But it’s about Bush. This speech is, if the Democrats set it up properly, going to generate maybe two days of negative stories about the GOP and plutocracy that are going to include revisitations of the dismal Bush record. If he were going to make himself an issue in the campaign in such a public way, you’d think he might have decided to go visit veterans in a hospital or something.

The more general point here of course is Bush’s apparitional posture during this campaign–the way he went yak hunting or whatever it was during the convention, the way he just hasn’t said a single word that I can see about anything. The Onion got the story. So now he is going to make an issue of himself the week before the voting by materializing in the Western Hemisphere’s most famous tax-dodge heaven, the kind of place where dozens of major corporations are “headquartered” in modest two-story buildings. Oh, but I forget–Americans love free enterprise! What am I, some kind of commie? (More below fold.)

All right then. I’m up super early here, if you’ll take note of the time stamp, because I’m so desperately worried about that bomb of Bibi’s. I can’t sleep thinking what would happen to Israel if that bomb fell into the hands of Snidley Whiplash. Okay, I tweeted something like that yesterday. I also tweeted, and I really liked this one, that rumor had it that for next year’s speech, Bibi was going to haul out a picture of a shoe and bang it on the podium! But I forgot to add the hashtag #wewillburyyou. That would have made it funnier. See what fun you’re missing if you’re not following me at @mtomasky? Beat the Christmas rush!

No, actually I’m up super early because we’re driving to Columbus today. So, light posting. Or maybe nonexistent posting. I’ll try to do one more this afternoon. However, if you find this afternoon that you really can’t do without me, catch me on Tamron Hall around 2:30 pm.

Worried about West Virginia’s debut Big 12 game vs. Baylor. Yes, we score points in our sleep, but there are these two things called blocking and tackling, and we’re not much good at either. Is Wacobloke ever around these parts? If so, any thoughts?

For more on this story go to:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/28/life-keeps-making-lemonade.html