Observantly on he Rails Calvin Trillin waxes poetic about Bush administration in new collection

The administration of George W. Bush, recently reannointed by the Republicans at their national convention, has been good for Calvin Trillin, in a way.

“It may not be good for the country,” said Trillin from his summer home in Nova Scotia. “But when it comes to national leaders who do odd or annoying things, people in my line of work approach it like dentists and tooth decay: It’s a pity, but where would we be without it?”

Well, we’d be without “Obliviously On He Sails,” Trillin’s new collection of verse about the Bush administration which has made the New York Times Best-Seller List. The work previously appeared in his “Deadline Poet” column for The Nation magazine. Trillin, who is visiting with friends in Castine, will be reading from and signing the book starting at 1 p.m. Wednesday at the Compass Rose bookstore in Castine.

The book’s title come from the poem titled “The Effect on His Campaign of the Release of George W. Bush’s College Transcript: “Obliviously on he sails/With marks not quite as good as Quayle’s.”

Many tend to give the president a pass personally, blaming his advisors for policies with which they disagree. Trillin thinks that that is a mistake.

“He’s personally amiable in a frat-boy sort of way,” said Trillin, 68. “People tend not to criticize him personally, and that in itself is truly dangerous. In the books that have come out from people that were inside the administration, Bush would take a meeting, stay there exactly as long as it’s scheduled for, and not ask a question the whole time. That’s not what a president should do; he should ask the tough questions.”

Among those targeted in Trillin’s book are, as he describes them, Supreme Commander Karl Rove, Condeleeza (Mushroom Cloud) Rice and Nanny Dick Cheney. He devotes one section to advisors such as Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, among those he dubs as the Sissy Hawk Brigade: “A band of Vietnam evaders/All puffed up now as tough crusaders/Yes, now, as then, they love inciting/A war that others will be fighting.”

Trillin said that the Sissy Hawk Brigade’s plan for world domination found a willing acolyte in the president.

“They offered the same thing to his father, and he wasn’t interested,” he said. “It required an opening for them to be there. You have to ask, would a person other than Bush approach it as an analytical, intelligent person would approach it, rather than just sign off on an ideological dream.”

Trillin, who has been in his current position of “deadline poet” since Bush’s father was in office, has real problems handling the topic of the war in Iraq.

“I find the war so appalling that some of the poems aren’t funny,” he said. “The wars in Panama and Grenada were really comic operas. But the war in Iraq isn’t silly. It’s more tragic for the country and those sent to fight.”

Rhyming is something that Trillin has always been able to do, although he doesn’t consider it much of a gift.

“There’s always one person in a family who can bend their thumb back and touch his wrist,” he said. “I used to be a special-occasion poet, who would write something for the wedding rehearsal dinner or a special birthday.”

He was inspired to begin writing verse professionally in 1990 by John Sununu, the former New Hampshire governor who served as George H.W. Bush’s chief of staff, creating “If You Knew What Sununu.” He was off and penning.

“Deadline poet” is but the latest chapter in a distinguished writing career. Trillin has written for Time, the New Yorker and The Nation and has been syndicated, with his columns collected into five books. His other books have included three comic novels, a collection of short stories, a travel book and three books on eating, which were eventually compiled into “The Tummy Trilogy.”

“I’ve often been attracted to stories where one part of society rubs up against another, and stories that have a strong narrative,” he said. “I look for a good story, not in a news sense, but in an around-the-campfire kind of way. Stories that work best are ones where you get some idea of what the place is like.”

Trillin, a New York City resident, has been a regular visitor to Maine over the past 30 years. He has developed a regular routine: “I stop in Kittery for clams, then take the ferry from Portland to Nova Scotia. I arrive around July 1, which is Canada Day, so I have bands playing for my arrival. I’ll stay until after Labor Day, then come back through Maine, spending two to three days on the coast on the way back.”

Will Trillin continue to have Bush to write about come November? He wouldn’t predict, but added, “Fighting the war of terrorism, it’s amazing that people feel safe in the hands of a man who went to war in a ruinous way without having a plan. It’s like a dog chasing a car; what happens when he catches it? Are we really better off making ourselves the demon of the Muslim world?”

If John Kerry wins, Trillin is ready to start over with a new cast of characters. And he’s learned from his past mistakes. One such was the George Pataki versus Mario Cuomo race for governor of New York.

“No one expected Pataki to win, so I used up all my Pataki rhymes during the campaign,” he recalled. “Then he won, and I didn’t have any left. So I’ve been saving my Kerry rhymes just in case.”

For more information on Calvin Trillin’s appearance, call the Compass Rose bookstore at 326-9366.