"Perhaps You'd like me to Hold Your Dick for You...?"

That is, of course, a line memorably delivered by Sir John Gielgud playing the butler to Dudley Moore's spoiled rich kid character in the 1970s-era movie 'Arthur.'

It's a line that came to my mind today as Bush and Cheney perform their ventriloquist-and-dummy act before the 9/11 Commission.

What a bind they got themselves into. It had become politically untenable for Bush to continue stone-walling the commission, and yet the administration also knew that Bush is too stupid, ill-informed, transparently dishonest and immature to be trusted to testify by himself. They had no other option but to have Cheney right in the next seat to, if I may, hold Bush's dick for him.

They've trotted out a number of explanations for the joint appearance-- 'it saves time,' 'they were in different places that day so this lets them give the commission a broader picture'--but each of them is laughably inane. No one believes them and they know it.

All they can do is brazen it through, while knowing full well in their hearts that in the eyes of the world, they have all but admitted that Bush is a pretty-boy figurehead who lacks the capacity to be president.

But you're not fooling anyone, boys.