By Dave Shiflett (Bloomberg) – George Bush is gone but not forgotten, at least not by Tracey Ullman, who whacks Bush and wife Laura early and often in the season opener of “Tracy Ullman’s State of the Union.” The half-hour series, whose second season debuts on Showtime Sunday night at 10 p.m. New York time, also features Ullman’s barbed impersonations of Arianna Huffington, Heather Mills and Celine Dion. Nobody, however, gets busted like the Bushes. Several skits are set at the Bush retreat in Crawford, Texas, where Laura is getting ready for a presidential garage sale. Ullman’s Laura is not quite as dead-on as Tina Fey’ Sarah Palin, but it’s pretty dang good, as the Bushes might put it. She’s chirpy and also a chain-smoking thief, having pinched several White House treasures on the way out of town, including a longish fertility symbol from Zimbabwe chief Robert Mugabe, a family portrait of the Lincolns, and a pair of French love seats. Also slated for sale: the presidential seal. Bush himself is more heard than seen. He’s first encountered as a snoring bed lump; it sounds as if he might have returned to the bottle, though that is mere speculation. He later drags a dead deer into the house and the deer’s not the only corpse in the room. Laura rekindles the issue of brain death with this jibe: “Remember when you asked where there are no old buildings in Hiroshima?” The Obamas come off far better, though their presence is restricted to phone conversations with Laura and Arianna Huffington, who may consider Ullman’s portrayal far too close for comfort. Huffington phones the new prez in pursuit of patronage. She’d be a perfect envoy to Greece, she insists, and is even willing to travel business class. Self-flattery gets her nowhere, however. The president apparently has his mind set on Meryl Streep (good eye, sir). “She does look good in Spandex, for her age,” snips the jilted Arianna. After she hangs up she says: “Maybe I should have gone with Hillary.” One senses that’s exactly how she would react to such a snubbing. Ullman’s impersonations are not restricted to politicos. Paul McCartney ex Heather Mills-McCartney belts out “Baby, I’m gonna make it on my own,” then tosses away her fake leg, instantly proving otherwise. Celine Dion, looking somewhat like a lizard, does a Larry King interview from New Orleans, flooding the set with phony tears and making me wish a thug had come along and strangled her. There’s also a production number hailing the “American Spirit” that includes a paean to urban violence -- “Drive by shootings, yes we can!” -- and a line that links Warren Buffett and Charles Manson. Being funny for a half hour is a tough assignment and things go a bit flat in skits featuring a pair of flight attendants. Political types may complain that Ullman is not a member of the fair and balanced revolution, especially at the end, when the cameras return to Crawford. Laura fires up her final smoke of the day and asks snoring George if there were things he wishes he could take back, such as “letting Cheney run hog-wild in Iraq” and “destroying the American financial system” – even though, with the latter at least, he had much bipartisan help. Other viewers might simply think these tend to be safe targets – kicking Bush and Heather Mills is not exactly an exercise in daring. Fear not, however. Future episodes include one that links the Catholic Church to a polygamist cult. That should stir things up. (Dave Shiflett is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)
