Oh, yeah, I’m going to make this work.  Now, if you’re not familiar with the show, “I Love New York” is not a show wherein people from the South express their adoration for the city I call home while secretly hating it and using the term “Yankees” (the people, not the team) as a curse word.  No, it’s VH1’s “celebreality” (as they feel the need to call it) show about the search for love by Tiffany Pollard aka New York, the two time runner-up of “Flavor of Love,” the dating show staring rapper/timepiece enthusiast Flava Flav and a whole lot of rejects from your local strip clubs, street corners, and free clinics.  New York, who at times has been compared in appearance to a transvestite (in my apartment, anyway), has a gaggle of guys from which to choose, all of whom she has given helpful nicknames like “Pootie” and “12 Pack,” and each week she keeps some and lets the rest go.
At this point in the thrilling competition, our “girl” New York is down to just two dudes, “thuggish” Chance (whose band name is so dumb that I won’t repeat it here for fear of Google forever linking my name and it) and “ninja turtle lookalike” Tango (who, we learned this week, cannot do the tango well, which may mean he’s a fan of Sylvester Stallone when he costars with Kurt Russell).  Whom will she choose now, only to be broken up with at the time of the reunion?  We’ll all find out in two week when the show reaches it’s probably-not-that-thrilling conclusion.

In the meantime, though, I’ve been watching New York, her bizarre statements, her mangled vocabulary, her inability to see other points of view even when she appears to be considering them (like her mother’s thoughts), and it finally hit me.  New York is a lot like George W. Bush (aka the president who can never take a picture where he actually looks presidential and not vaguely confused and/or distracted), so if I want to figure out whom New York will choose, I must ask myself, “What would W. do?”  Right now there are crazy right wingers who are putting out “WWWD” bracelets, aren’t there?
Don’t see how somebody on a VH1 dating show can be like the leader of the (less-than-before-he-got-there) free world?  Let’s compare.
New York: “I’m the H.B.I.C.” (that is, the Head Bitch in Charge)
W: “I’m the decider, and I decide what is best”

New York chose to get rid of the people who made the most sense as partners, such as Ace & Onix, sharp professionals who have their act together, and kept around those prone to fits of craziness and wild, obsessive behavior, such as Chance and Tango.
W.’s advisors?  Colin Powell was forced out, Dick Cheney and Scooter Libby remain.

New York (from a “Blender” interview): “I have a third eye and I can see the future.”
W (regarding Russian president Putin): “I looked the man in the eye. I was able to get a sense of his soul.”

New York freaks out if any of her suitors even consider that maybe staying at her house and playing her bizarre little reindeer games might not be worth the prize.
W is fond of telling anyone who will listen that “you are either for us or against us.”

New York (re: Mr. Boston): “I feel like we could make love on a stack of textbooks”
W: “You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.”

So, having lived under the President and all his policies for the last … really, it’s only been six years?  Feels like much longer than that.  Anyway, from all that time, how can I figure out whom will young Tiffany choose?  Chance, the rapper who is never without a hat and loves to yell at everybody, much to New York’s delight and her mom’s horror, or Tango, the businessman who is never without a hat and loves to have overwrought, melodramatic psuedo-Romeo & Juliet moments with New York, much to her delight and my horror?
Well, now that I’ve made the New York – W connection it seems so obvious.  New York isn’t really Bush now, she’s Bush when he was in his twenties, when he was reckless with his life and choices (well, he was reckless in a different way then).  And who would Bush choose when he was twentysomething, when he was boozing and drugging it up with reckless abandon?
Well, New York once said of Chance, “He drinks a lot.  I like that.”  That sounds about right to me.
Congratulations, Chance!  The choice of a reality star and the 43rd president.

David L. Williams contributes three articles looking at the world of televison per week to TV Envy.