A Sorta Political Fairy Tale...?

The scene is a secure room deep in the bowels of the White House''' in late May of this year. Two middle-aged, balding men enter and sit in overstuffed Corinthian leather chairs and light up cigars...

Karl: Are you sure no one can record us down here?

Dick: I’m positive, I had my people sweep the room for bugs, and two of my best guys are stationed right outside the door.

Karl: Look, I know you don’t think very highly of John McCain, but we’re got to do something to make sure that he wins in November.

Dick: The thing is, he’s not a true conservative, but he won the nomination, and there’s nothing we can do about that, and I’d rather have him than that colored guy, Osama.

Karl: Dick, his name is Obama, and they’re not called colored anymore.

Dick: Whatever. How am in supposed to know what to call them? First they wanted to be called “black” and then it was “African-American,” ... or was it the other way around? Was it “African-American” first? Anyway, if they can’t make up their own minds, how the hell are we real Americans supposed to know what to call them?

Karl: OK, OK. Let’s stay on point here. The problem is, if he wins, we could be in real trouble.

Dick: Yeah, we have to be concerned about our legacy, how history will view this administration.

Karl: Legacy my ass! If he wins he’ll appoint a new Democratic Attorney General, and unless he puts a blind person in the job they’ll see what we did with those Halliburton contracts within the first week. If that happens, the only thing that will beat us to Leavenworth will be the headlights on the bus. We’ll all spend our retirement wearing striped jumpsuits.

Dick: Yeah, it could get ugly. What do we do?

Karl: We have to make sure McCain wins.

Dick: How the hell do we do that? The way things look now he’s going to get beat like he stole something ... like a runaway slave ... like a government mule ... like a redhead step-child ... like —

Karl: OK, OK, I get the point! What we have to do is make sure it doesn’t happen.

Dick: Well, “W” did make a joke about endorsing Osama.

Karl: Hey Dickhead, that was a joke. We’ve got to make sure McCain carries a key state, maybe someplace like Ohio.

Dick: Ohio, yeah, Ohio. Where the hell is Ohio anyway?

Karl: Somewhere out there near Iowa, isn’t it? Unroll that map over there.

(They go over to a table and spread out a large map of America on it)

Dick: Geez, I can’t even find the damn place!

Karl: Uh, you’ve got the map up-side-down.

Dick: (Going around the table instead of turning the map around, he finds it at last and is elated) Here it is!

Karl: (Rolling his eyes up to Heaven) Yes, Dick, you did manage to find it. Now what do you know about it?

Dick: What should I know about it?

Karl: Well, “W” did carry it both times, but now they have a Democratic governor, so it might be harder this time ... (thinking) unless we weaken Obama in the part of the state where he’s the strongest, in a Democratic stronghold.

Dick: Where’s that?

Karl: (Getting frustrated) Cuyahoga County, you nitwit!

Dick: You don’t have to get testy. How can we weaken a colored guy in a Democratic stronghold? You know those people always vote solidly against us.

Karl: We have to get them to stay home, not go out to the polls on Election Day.

Dick: I know! We could keep raising the price of gas so they won’t be able to afford to drive to the polls!

Karl: That won’t work; this is one of those states where anyone can vote by absentee ballot.

Dick: That’s always struck me as un-American, we need to have someone from Justice look into that.

Karl: (Rising his voice) Christ! Can we just stay on point here? Now look, I’ve have some operatives do some research, and politically the county is run by one of three commissioners who also is the chairman of the county Democratic Party. He has some kind of ethnic name, Dimora, or something like that. Supposedly he’s a big, big man around the county. One of the biggest. He has a henchman, another elected official, some guy who’s so cheap he doesn’t even go to the barbershop. I figure that if we dirty them up somehow, the Democratic Party will be in disarray, and McCain can carry the state.

Dick: What if we can’t find any dirt on them?

Karl: Geez, I always thought that you were smarter than “W,” but I guess you’re not. These guys have been in office for over a decade, and I guarantee you that the Department of Justice can find something on any elected official in the country that’s been in office that long. And you know the old saying:”A slick prosecutor can get a grand jury will indict a ham sandwich.”

Dick: But what if these guys are popular, maybe the voters won’t go for it.

Karl: They’re still Americans aren’t they? We’ve been able to get the voters to go for anything over the last seven years, right? We’ll just take a page from the Colin Powell playbook: We go in with overwhelming force. We have Justice call in agents from across the region, say, 150 of them or more, and we stage this gigantic raid. We make so much smoke that the public will think there has to be some fire somewhere. We can always get them on political favors if nothing else... hiring of friends and relatives.

Dick: A federal force of 150? That’s more than Reagan used to invade Grenada, but I like it. That way the newspapers will pick it up and we can convict them in the media even before the case goes to trial. They do have a daily newspaper up there, don’t they?

Karl: Yeah, it’s called some kind of “dealer.” I think the name is the “Double Dealer.”

Dick: Perfect! But wait, what if someone notices that the Department of Justice is just about to get sanctioned by Congress for the same thing: Appointing only Republicans as federal prosecutors and judges?

Karl: That’s different.

Dick: Why?

Karl: Because we’re the party in power, and we said so, that’s why. We make the rules. Look, you’re not getting weak in the knees on me are you?

Dick: No, the way I see it, either we throw these two guys under the bus, or we could wind up in a federal prison ourselves.

Karl: Hey, you got that right. Better them than us. (Satisfied, they head for the door)

From Cool Cleveland reader Samuel Swann swanndiveATgmail.com

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