What might have been

My fellow Americans:

Yesterday, a ruthless band of pirates boarded a merchant ship, the Maersk Alabama, which is owned by a Danish company but has an American crew. They were armed with state-of-the-art weapons including rocket-propelled grenade launchers such as those used by terrorists and insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. At this hour, the crew has regained control of the ship, but the pirates are holding Captain Richard Phillips, an American citizen.

It is clear that these criminals do not respect international law, and it is the policy of the United States never to negotiate with terrorists. I have consulted with my national security adviser, Lindsey Graham, and with my Cabinet. I am particularly grateful for the counsel of Vice President Palin, since she informs me that she can see the Straits of Hormuz from her bedroom window. I am pleased to tell you that it is their unanimous belief that we should launch an immediate attack on Iran, which has been arming and training terrorists for many years. We have obtained satellite photos which clearly show pirate training camps on the Iranian coast. These will be our first targets, but not of course our only ones.

I want to stress that we wish no harm to the Iranian people; we hope they will soon enjoy all the benefits of democracy and a free market economy as the people of Iraq. But there is no room for piracy in the twenty-first century.

Thank you and good night, my fellow prisoners. Americans.

October! Surprise!

Hunters know there's nothing as dangerous as a cornered, wounded animal. A full-grown Republican has been known to spit like a camel, fling crap like a chimpanzee, and get all up in your face like a chicken hawk. A few other things we should be ready for:

Palling around with terrorists 2.0

If the Bill Ayers "bombshell" continues to meet with weary shrugs, the RNC is fully prepared to release a grainy photo of Barack and Michelle Obama emerging from a Jane Fonda movie, smiling as if they enjoyed it. (I know, I know. It's a revival house and it's showing The China Syndrome, OK?) Voice-over: "The Obamas contributed money to Hanoi Jane herself!" Seven-fifty apiece.

Spectral evidence

At an Obama rally, an adolescent girl (maybe more than one) suddenly points to the space beside the senator and screams, "The Evil One is whispering in his ear!" She then falls to the ground and thrashes about, crying, "No! Stop pinching me! Make him stop!" This should play especially well in areas where libraries have been forced to remove books by the terrorist Arthur Miller from their shelves.

Dead or alive

On the soundstage where the moon landing was faked, "Osama bin Laden" (played by veteran character actor Richard Libertini) is dragged from a cave by two Marines (Casey Affleck, Patrick Swayze) and their commander, Col. Buck Mulligan (Chuck Norris). He is wearing an extra-large Obama-Biden button. No, maybe a T-shirt. Game over. Only question: Who gets this exclusive breaking story, Hannity or Hume?

(For entertainment purposes only. This blog takes no responsibility if the McCain campaign actually tries any of this stuff. No responsibility.)

Bull Moose & Squirrel

Dear Senator McCain,

I was taken aback the other day when I heard you declare that Theodore Roosevelt was your hero. This makes perfect sense for a little boy in the Canal Zone -- no TR, no Panama Canal (and probably no Panama). But you're all grown up and running for president on a platform of "I've suffered for my country, now it's your turn," and Americans are entitled to ask which Theodore Roosevelt you mean. Is it the bellicose TR (notice how I don't call him "Teddy" -- he hated that) who pushed for a huge navy and promoted the Spanish-American War? Or the TR who won the Nobel Peace Prize for brokering a settlement to the Russo-Japanese War of 1906, the only American president to be accorded that honor besides your fellow midshipman Jimmy Carter? I know you admire the TR who loved to hunt wild animals, and no doubt would have employed a helicopter for that purpose if he could. What about the TR who added 194 million acres to the National Park system, established the first National Bird Preserve in 1903 and the U.S. Forestry Service in 1905? That's pretty green, isn't it?

As I'm sure you know, TR was such a progressive nuisance as governor of New York that his party put him on the national ticket in 1900 to get him out of the way in the ceremonial office of Vice President; but Presidents sometimes die in office. Succeeding McKinley, TR used the power of his office to dissolve 40 illegal monopolies, regulate railroad rates which were gouging farmers, pass the Pure Food and Drug Act which established the FDA, and advocate -- wait for it -- a system of national health insurance. Do you think your new (and rather skittish) friends on the religious right know that your Roosevelt opposed putting "In God We Trust" on our coinage? A believer himself, he considered it sacrilegious, while insisting on the separation of church and state. I'm beginning to wonder if you ever thought about Theodore Roosevelt before Time magazine put him on the cover two years ago.

No doubt about it, he was a maverick. Disgusted by the rightward drift of the Republican Party, he helped form the Progressives and became their candidate for president in 1912 (and did better than any third-party candidate in history -- Taft was a dismal third). He must have known it would split the party, but he thought Woodrow Wilson was preferable to four more years of Big Bill. It's called principle. Look it up.

In the next generation, TR's progressive program was carried on by his niece Eleanor, who is almost as despised by your party as her husband. But this may not be the wrong time to point out that, as in 1932, the American financial system is hanging by a thread. This time, however, it's the thread spun by the New Deal. When Washington Mutual failed last week, millions of people did not lose everything because their accounts are insured by the FDIC up to $100,000. I know this is hardly significant to someone who thinks middle class starts at three million, but most of us get along on a lot less. The brokerage giants would not have failed had they been properly regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission, another New Deal project rendered impotent by the Cheney-Bush regime. And the only reason millions more Americans are not destitute is that the regime failed in its efforts to "privatize" Social Security, i.e., turn its assets over to the financial wise guys at Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, et al. All these safeguards are the work of Democrats. Not just Democrats, liberal Democrats. If the Obama campaign doesn't remind people of that every ten minutes, I pity us all.

Theodore Roosevelt was the youngest man ever to take up residence in the White House. You want to be the oldest. There's absolutely nothing wrong with living for 72 years as long as you learn something along the way. American history would be a good place to start.

Pretty slick

"Suspending the campaign" because bailing out incompetently run brokerage houses and insurance companies is just too important to be left to people who actually know something about the financial system. And canceling the debate because his handlers met at four in the morning and concluded there's no way John McCain could credibly debate a B-average high school sophomore, much less Barack Obama. After all, some questions can't be answered, "For five years, I didn't even have a black and white television." But weren't two more debates scheduled? The Ministry of Fatherland Security can finesse one of them by declaring a Super Purple Alert, but what about the third? Fire, flood, false alarm about the Rapture? Is this a campaign or a Preston Sturges movie? When does Biden debate Betty Hutton...I mean Sarah Palin?

Where do you live-a, John?

I haven't been able to put my finger on the passage, but I'm sure it was Machiavelli who said, "If the enemy has determined to tread upon his own salami, refrain from all interference." It took John McCain exactly thirty seconds to go from plausible president to confused old man who can't remember how many dwellings he owns. At least he has a full-time driver, so there won't be any of those embarrassing where-did-I-park who-took-my-keys episodes.

Of course, it's not strictly speaking an Important Political Issue, like the economy, the war, the other war, the price of gas, global climate change, immigration, unemployment, Russian acts of aggression, public schools, poverty, are you as bored as I am? But it's just the kind of thing to galvanize a fickle, largely apolitical electorate with the attention span of a baby squirrel, and it won't go quietly. Some day they'll turn out the lights in Beijing and Jay Leno will be back, and he'll need something to make fairly obvious jokes about. The Democrats are being a lot more proactive than they were in the past, with a commercial already on the air. And the foreclosures grind on, and several million people aren't sure where they'll be getting their Christmas cards. Eventually yelping "arugula" and "Vietnam" will have the same effect on the voters that Giuliani's endlessly repeated "911" had. Remember Giuliani? He's a private citizen in the security business today. When people face the ballot the big issues fade from their minds like last year's Academy Award winners, and they remember the trivia: Dukakis in the tank, Poppy Doc Bush at the supermarket, Sargent Shriver impressing Brooklyn by consuming a kosher hot dog with a glass of milk. (Not that McCain is likely to commit that faux pas -- he carries Joe Lieberman around in his pocket in case he finds himself in a room with voters who speak only Yiddish.)

There is a way out. McCain needs to drop dead.

Let me finish. Eight years ago Mel Carnahan died, and went on to win a Senate seat from John Ashcroft. (The people of Missouri were wiser than the Cheney-Bush regime, which promptly hired Ashcroft as the first of its many miserable attorneys general.) Dying could be the ultimate service McCain can do for his country. He has as good as acknowledged he probably wouldn't live long enough for a second term. His medical records couldn't be examined in full by a team of reporters in the three hours they were allotted. All he has to do now is stop availing himself of the free medical care enjoyed by the princes and princesses of the Senate (which they evidently do not believe should be available to their subjects). And if I may again cite Machiavelli (who, by the way, was imprisoned and tortured but didn't whine about it): "Screw 'em. What can they do to you when you're dead?"

Sweet smell of desperation

Remember when the Republicans used to nominate aging movie stars and retired athletes for high office? Celebrity alone was enough of a qualification for sending George Murphy to the Senate and Jim Bunning to Congress. A career in action movies fully prepared Arnold Schwarzenegger to govern the most populous and disaster-prone state in the country, apparently -- ask the state employees who just saw their salaries cut to minimum wage (I hope that doesn't include all those exhausted firefighters and the workers who have to pick up after the latest earthquake). And I seem to remember someone called Reagan. When did all the stars go dim?

Wherever he travels, Barack Obama draws crowds that overflow the venue and make the police nervous. For this transgression, he is compared to Hitler by the pathetic Ben Stein and to Britney Spears by some Rove wannabe laboring away in a secret Fox studio. Nobody wants to watch John McCain read the price of milk off an index card and then free-associate about Iraq. Well, who nominated him, anyway? Did they actually listen to him first? Anyone would look good standing between Dead Fred Thompson and Miracle Mike Huckabee, but the other garden gnomes have left the stage. Those dedicated followers of fashion whom Calvin Trillin named the Sabbath Gasbags are fond of good old John, but even they are starting to notice his apparent failure to learn anything after all these years in the Senate besides how to bum a ride on a corporate jet. The choice of St. Paul, Minnesota, for the Republican convention may turn out to be genius -- it's much easier to make a small place look crowded. Madison Square Garden would be filled with the sound of crickets.

Guys, guys, don't hate Obama because he's charismatic -- it's time to close the Glamor Gap. May I recommend Ted Nugent for vice president? He's young -- well, younger than McCain -- and if he decides to shoot a lawyer in the face, he'll use a crossbow. It's a medieval weapon, which should appeal to your restive evangelical base. And from what I can find, he's not that busy.

Don't thank me. Just let me ride in the inaugural parade with the Shriners.