Just look where over-achieving can land you

One of the most amusing tidbits to emerge from the news in recent days comes from this week's Time Magazine, in which Mike Allen writes about how President Bush took his daughter's sloppy seconds and turned a young Texas fellow named Blake Gottesman into one of his most trusted personal aides.

Mr. Gottesman, 26, doesn't have so much as a college degree (though he's now bound for Dubya's alma mater, Harvard Business School), but he dated Jenna Bush in high school, which more than qualifies him for a position on the top shelf of the Bush cabinet, as W's go-to Wunderkind no less.

Other staffers call him the president's "mood ring." Karl Rove calls him "brilliant." Dubya calls him "Soldier." I call him a world-class tool. Basically, this guy draws a $95,000 salary to be Dubya's manservant. And they say young people have no respect for hard work.

Though he also attends to substantive matters like drafting speeches and managing the president's professional interactions, other aspects of Gottesman's job description are a bit more interesting:

Since it's hard for the president to receive mail, Gottesman takes to work the catalogs he receives at home so that when the two have downtime on Air Force One, the president can choose running shoes and fishing gear, which Gottesman then orders online.

"Hot dog, son, it's the new 'Woods 'n' Whet-lands' catalog! It's just like Christmas!" Now there's something I hadn't thought about before–aside from letters pre-screened for anthrax and praise from children or servicemen, how much of his mail does Dubya actually get to see? And how much junk mail must the president get? You know there have to be people who have passed a couple of dull or drunken hours typing "1600 Pennsylvania Ave." into the "request a catalog" forms on all sorts of obscure, mistargeted or downright prurient Web sites.

And of course, no aide worth his salt can neglect gathering materials for the next great American instantiation of irony in architecture:

Gottesman collects artifacts for a future presidential library, down to the whistles Bush blows to start the White House Easter Egg Roll.

Now isn't that a precious piece of history if ever something was. On the off chance that he's fielding curiosity requests, I've got a few suggestions:

• The famed August 6, 2001, "Bin Laden determined to strike in U.S" intelligence briefing. (Oops, that's probably been "accidentally" incinerated.)

• The copy of "My Pet Goat" Bush couldn't seem to put down when informed of the Sept. 11 attacks.

• Enough source material to fill a "Hall of Star-Spangled Propaganda Banners."

• A taxidermied Barney and Miss Beazley, whose outfits change with the seasons and holidays.

• The president's custom-made "World Leader See 'n Say."

• A lost recording of Dubya playing the jug while Ashcroft sang patriotic folk songs.

• A one-of-a-kind end table from the Crawford ranch decoupaged in Florida and Ohio presidential ballots.

• The notepad on which the president doodles race cars and monkeys when taking long-winded calls from God.

• And, of course, The Pretzel.