Czars...the New Duma!

The going thing in Washington these days is the “Czar Game.” So far, President Obamessiah has appointed 33 czars to take over parts of the government and report directly to him, thus bypassing all the Cabinet secretaries, who also report directly to him. The term “czar” is defined as “one having great power or authority” (Merriam-Webster Collegiate, 11th edition). Twenty of the first 21 or so appointments were Jewish, though there’s nothing wrong with that, and the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah (God Damn America) Wright whined recently that these Jews proscribe his access to the prez. The good cleric (inspirer of Audacity of Hope) has accused Israel of being in cahoots with the mischief-makers of 9/11, so maybe his protégé’s advisers figure he might blow them all to Kingdom Come if allowed on the premises. So…shalom, Jerry babe!

Well…the czars all do things that are within the responsibilities of the Cabinet secretaries, but they’re also highly-placed government officials, about which the Constitution requires the advice and consent of the Senate. This means that the Senate – acting about as fast as molasses pours at the Arctic Circle – would have to delve into the backgrounds of all these folks, and that could take eons of time. The dems would have to contrive ways to make the czars all appear as innocent as the new-blown snow while the repubs would dig up every smidgeon of dirt that could be found, going back at least a half-century. So…what’s the Great Deliverer to do in order to run the government right out of the White House? Just sign an executive order and VOILA!…a czar-star is born. Eat your heart out, senators, while you wonder how all this happened so fast.

Czars are bound to not come cheaply, of course, but the cost of having prez-ordained geniuses running the government is simply calculated to be whatever the public can bear, which in this case has no limit, since the country’s running on empty now anyway. Printing a few more billions is no problem to pay these keepers of the torch of freedom as they further the country’s descent into socialism. Having to depend on the Cabinet secretaries also takes time, and theirs is too valuable to be devoted to things such as Afghanistan and Pakistan, things that can just tie up a State Secretary for…well, hours. Now that Kim Jong Il has fired off some more missiles, there will have to be a 34th czar to take care of North Korea, since Secretary Clinton is probably tied up with helping Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez invade Honduras and sugar the gasoline in every service-station.

So…how much? Treasury Secretary Geithner makes $191,300 per year, explaining why, of course, he just can’t pay his taxes for those other two years he cheated the government out of (that statute of limitations thing, doncha know?). Since, like Geithner, the czars report directly to “He who walks on water,” they are bound to make as much. Of course, there are perks, like that valuable health benefit (has just received its own czar to administer), pensions, etc. Maybe something like $200,000 per czar would be a very conservative estimate of czar-cost, and this doesn’t even include travel expenses, glitzy hotels, meals at $100 per entrée, but who’s counting anyway? This means that just the basics come to some $6,600,000 per year, a small price to pay for the best brains in the land.

The rumor is that there will soon be an “Apology Czar,” since some of the president’s apologies for this nation’s existence (in places like the Middle East) have upset dear friends of the nation, like Iran’s newly reelected (what a laugh!) President Ahmadinejad. Then, there are the episodes of Obamessiah not genuflecting properly before either King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia (origin of 15 hijackers) or Venezuelan King Hugo. The first exercise for the new czar is rumored to be a proper apology to Fidel Castro for GM’s and Chrysler’s not sending parts for the Chevys and Dodges, circa the 1950s-60s. The car-czar (Rattner by name) will no doubt take care of this problem…maybe even send over a 1970 recently-overhauled Caddie. After all, though he’s never run an auto company, he is the auto expert and is already making plans to force the auto-makers to build cars that run on wind-power and get 5,000 miles to the gust.

So…let’s hear it for the new czars! In the land of the free and the home of the brave and the con of the czars, a new age is about to begin. The voters will still vote but the czars will inhabit the White House, and this will make the Russians happy, since they will then see their number one nemesis traveling down the same path that they took to oblivion. Who knows? Perhaps the czars will institutionalize themselves into the State Duma, thus completing Obamessiah’s total control of everything from Cheerios to Chevrolets.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

Tyranny & the Fourth!

Coincidentally, the document that declared the independence of the United States was officially sanctioned on 04 July 1776 in Philadelphia and the turning-point battle of the Civil War that preserved the resulting Union was fought on 04 July 1863 at Gettysburg. Thus, in the span of little more than one average lifetime as measured by today’s standards, the nation was founded and saved. Actually, the Constitution was officially ratified in 1788 and the first president and first Congress officially took office and “founded” the nation in 1789, so the actual birth and salvation of the new country took place in the span of just one lifetime.

The Revolutionary War had been on for more than a year when the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776. The Battles of Lexington and Concord in April 1775 were battles that took many lives. By the end of the day, British troops had lost 273 soldiers, while the Colonists lost only 94. Eighteen of these Colonists had died during the battle at Lexington. The Revolutionary War had begun. So…the nation was birthed and saved through the shedding of much blood. An estimated 25,000 U.S. soldiers lost their lives in the eight-year Revolutionary War, and an incredible 624,000 died in military action during the four-year Civil War, nearly half of all deaths in all the wars in which this country has engaged.

Nearly all the deaths and all the many times more in number of the wounded have occurred in the never-ending battle against tyranny of one kind or another, whether the despicable despotism of the British in the 1770s or inculcated by monster dictator Adolf Hitler in the 1930s-40s or the tyranny of terrorism inflicted upon this country on 09 September 2001 by monster Muslim Osama bin Laden. The battles against tyranny will never end, and the major – almost only – bulwark against tyranny today is the United States, to which the nations of the world look to be the international stabilizer.

Tyranny
The muffled sound of drum and fife
And musketry in mortal strife
And voices raised in anger, pain,
Or mourning those among the slain
Are sensed when contemplating still
The carnage of a Bunker Hill,
When only battles - bloody, fierce -
The wall of tyranny could pierce.

Then comes to mind the gory scenes
From Queenston Heights to New Orleans
When tyranny again was banned
Upon the sea, upon the land;
And one can sense again the sound
When roaring cannons shook the ground
And mortal men...to make men free...
Would enter immortality.

On Shiloh’s bloody ground that day
They died with valor in full sway,
Or Gettysburg...Chancellorsville,
Where brothers each might brother kill;
One hears the massive, tragic groan
As tens of thousands would atone
- With blood - for hated slavery...
The vilest form of tyranny.

When jaded beasts oppress the poor
And close to them sweet freedom’s door,
It falls upon the free...the strong
Throughout the world to right this wrong;
At Santiago, brave men fell,
And San Juan Hill became a hell,
But men who found eternity
Gained entry scourging tyranny.

Chateau-Thierry, Belleau Wood,
Where thousands died, but others stood
Their ground with blood and sweat and fears,
And buried comrades through their tears;
And one can sense the frightful sounds
Of tanks and planes emitting rounds
From lethal, modern weaponry
To end the threat of tyranny.

To end the threat of tyranny? -
Ah...no...remember Normandy,
Or Iwo Jima, Anzio,
Where once again the blood must flow;
And one may close the eyes and see
And hear the mighty guns at sea
And wonder why it all must be...
But knows deep down...end tyranny.

So listen!...hear the muffled roar
Of new jet planes now bound for war,
Of new invasions from the sea,
The dying fighting tyranny;
And names like Inchon, Pork Chop Hill,
And Bloody Ridge - remembered still -
Assault the mind, yet augur peace,
In hope that tyranny will cease.

But hope, though strong, has little worth
As long as despots roam the earth,
As long as beasts whose prime resource
Is tyranny...forge brutal force;
So listen...as the jungle screams,
And those who die are shorn of dreams
At Pleiku, Khe Sanh, and Da Nang,
Where flags from coffins daily hang.

No…evil tyranny survives,
Each generation robbed of lives
Attempting to wipe out its curse,
Each war the next one to rehearse;
Recall the battle in the sand -
Exploding missiles as they land
On Persian Gulf, Kuwait, Iraq,
Mad tyranny again to block.

As in most centuries before,
The twenty-first begins with war
When evil men in Allah’s name
Torch innocents in jet-fuel flame;
Their leaders learn that they will pay
In Afghan mountains day by day,
Or in Iraqi towns and sand
An awesome price when good men stand.

************

In tranquil fields throughout the world,
Our dead are marked by flags unfurled,
Or marked by nature’s restless waves,
Beneath the seas in timeless graves;
Yes, thus it is, and thus will be...
Until God’s final, terse decree...
But until then, now strong and free,
The decent must kill tyranny.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

Another Shoe Has Dropped!

Well…surprise, surprise…the other shoe – or perhaps better – ANOTHER shoe has dropped in Kentucky’s ongoing “Year of the Scandal.” This time, it’s the Kentucky Association of Counties, and the Lexington Herald-Leader is to be thanked for yet another expose. This should be a “Pulitzer” year for the paper.

So…five top executives managed to do away with almost $600,000 in just two years. Everything from barrels of liquor to the girlie clubs to fancy and expensive “working luncheons” at “selected” bistros to exotic trips here and yon to just keep abreast of the latest (gasp) happenings in the care and feeding of counties. Not only are these charlatans way, way overpaid in the first place, but they ought to start right now coughing up hard cash for the perks they STOLE on the taxpayers’ dime.

Imagine! – nearly $200,000 for meals in two years – almost $275 per day. Do these people ever eat at home? Nearly $17,000 for game tickets, golf and souvenirs! Are these parasites so underpaid in their six-figure salaries that they can’t even pay their way into a ballgame? In one month, more than $7,200 was dropped at one restaurant in Lexington – but, hey, these guys are located in Frankfort. They also ran up thousands in meals in other restaurants in Lexington and Louisville. These guys have offices, but they do their business (with the aid of plenty of alcohol) in lavish working lunches, apparently.

Three of the four airport honchos saw the light and resigned post-haste earlier this year. They managed to squander $600,000 in three years, but the five KACO operators wasted nearly $600,000 in just two years. The airport thieves are probably still waiting to see if criminality is in the wind. The same should be true for KACO leeches, and they ought to resign or be fired before the sun goes down…no ifs, ands, or buts.

Complicit in these raids on public funds are the boards that are supposed to know what’s going on. Instead, at least some of their members enter into the game themselves…go on the trips, take spouses, etc. Indeed, the Kentucky League of Cities honchos had the RIGHT to take their spouses along on the jaunts. Three officials managed to spend $300,000 on meals, travel, etc., in just three years. Indeed, some $20,000 in meals was dropped at the restaurant owned by the League director’s husband. Talk about graft! The lady who was/is the head of that board didn’t even know the amount of the director’s salary, which had just been jacked up to way over $300,000 a year. The League director oughtta be outta there right now.

Okay…a relatively small amount of these essentially rip-off numbers was bona fide. The Library honcho and her staff managed to get in on the goodies, too, and it seems that the going thing in all these enterprises is to give out credit cards like dealing pinochle hands, with the added advantage of almost no accounting. It’s crazy but these pilferers understand that the public is collectively as dumb as a gourd and deserves to be ripped-off.

The boards that are supposed to oversee these shenanigans might as well not exist. They’re put into place through the grand Kentucky modus operandi known as cronyism, pure and simple. They understand their jobs to involve…well, nothing. They’re not paid, after all, so why should they put any effort toward control or even knowledge of what is connected to their positions? Just join in the fun! Don’t rock the boat! It’s disgusting, and these paid-official-leeches should be gone, rules put into place, and board members informed that with the privilege of the position comes the responsibility – love it or leave it!

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

Chandler Drinks the KOOL-AID!

Central Kentucky’s U.S. Representative Ben Chandler drank the Obamessiah KOOL-AID and voted for the Cap-and-Trade bill and is proud of it. Oh yeah…he said he had to struggle about this decision but didn’t mention that he, as was the case with all the rest of the solons, had never read the bill and had no idea what was in it. He never read the “ stimulus bill,” either, before voting on it, so what else is new in Washington these days? Speaker Pelosi crooks her little finger and the lawmakers fall in line.

According to the Lexington Herald-Leader, Chandler said, "When I cast this vote, I thought about my children, their future and the duty all of us have to stewardship. For me, this was a decision that I feel is right and a decision that will, with time, fundamentally change the way our nation and our state produce and use energy, while creating better opportunities for our people." How would he know how the bill would or would not do anything since he never read it and since the democrat leadership made it impossible for a copy (over 300 pages added just during the preceding night) to be available on the House floor so anybody could read it?

All of the latest data developed by top U.S. scientists (not the UN-IPCC gang) indicates that mankind has absolutely no significant effect on global-warming or climate-change or whatever the propaganda crowd calls cyclical climate-conditions these days. Indeed, the planet entered a cooling trend some years ago, forcing the alarmist/opportunists (like Al Gore) to force everything at full-speed-ahead so the public will forget these strong-arm tactics before the elections next year. Indeed, there’s more ocean ice now than there was in 1980.

Both Pelosi and one of the bill’s sponsors, Representative Markey, have significant financial interests in this legislation, which will hasten the country’s journey toward that of Spain, a country that’s passed cap-and-trade and is now experiencing an unemployment rate over 18%. Significantly, both Australia and Japan have turned it down. Senator Kerry was blathering in that chamber of millionaires the other day (thanks to C-Span) that this country absolutely must pass this legislation in order to have the bona fides to change such countries as China and Russia during the big international climate-clambake in Copenhagen next December.

Besides the fact that Kerry is loony-tunes anyway, China and Russia are like sharks circling in the water as they watch Obamessiah and Pelosi – with help from Chandler – deliver the U.S. into their incisors. China is the world’s heaviest polluter but is not even required by the laughable Kyoto treaty, never ratified by this country, to do anything to curb its emissions. Neither is India, with its 1.2 billion – that’s 1,200,000,000 – people, four times as many as in the U.S., filling the atmosphere with stuff…like launching gases is the greatest thing since peanut butter. Russia will enact no restrictions (remember Chernobyl), either, so Chandler is helping put his own country at risk with respect to its position in the world market.

But not to worry, China has only 1.4 billion – that’s a measly 1,400,000,000 people in the midst of building coal-fired electricity plants on practically a daily basis…with no plans to even give a serious thought to global warming or cooling or whatever…certainly not to putting scrubbers in operation – too expensive by half. The Chinese laugh as they watch the exodus of even more industry from this country to theirs, since Obamessiah and Pelosi mean to wreck the U.S. manufacturing base by taxing it to death – with Ben Chandler’s help, of course.

The word on a news program yesterday was that Al Gore stands to become the first billionaire created on the back of this legislation. He already has interests in place to take full advantage of this legislation…helped along by Ben Chandler. The only hope is that there are enough senators with spine – doubtful – to stand up to Obamessiah and say a loud NAY, not on our watch. The scientific facts fly in the face of all this skullduggery, so the question has to do with motive.

The motive seems clear enough. Obamessiah is a product of Barack Obama, Sr. and the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, the touchstones of his books. Obama, Sr. was Muslim, as was Obamessiah’s stepfather. Wright, besides probably also being a closet Muslim like his bosom buddy Calypso Louie Farrakhan, is a genuine America-hater, with no peer in the intensity of that hate. The president is intent on bringing down this country, and a Congress (at least the democrats) that is obviously stupid or a willing accomplice or both is in on the game. Obamessiah is running the banks, other financial institutions, Chrysler, General Motors, and will soon force Ford and Toyota to give up. He means to have it all and at the same time make a total shambles of the economy…a bloodless coup, in other words.

Oh yes…remember! Representative Ben Chandler is in on the game, in the messiah’s pocket.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

KEEP...Now Out of the Gate!

The “horsey set,” including Governor Beshear and former governor Jones, now the president of the Kentucky Equine Education Project (KEEP), the super-lobby outfit (with deep pockets) stumping for slots (now euphemistically called video lottery terminals) at ONLY the racetracks met their Waterloo when the slots bill didn’t make it out of the Senate committee this week, so the legislators simply did their duty and passed a budget the guv and crowd had claimed depended absolutely upon the slots. Their attempt at fraud was thus complete.

So…what was KEEP to do? Why…KEEP staged a rally to celebrate its loss (and probably wondered how it could spend so much to gain so little, actually nothing). KEEP head honcho Jones allowed that the state Senate was akin to a “third-world dictatorship,” presumably with Senate head honcho Williams being the horsey version of Idi Amin or maybe Hugo Chavez or even (gasp) FIDEL…well…OLE! The Louisville Courier-Journal claimed that 900 folks were at the rally, which featured speakers vowing swift revenge against republicans whose minds were so warped that they didn’t realize that horseracing is Kentucky’s “Signature Industry,” whatever that means.

Not mentioned, of course, was the fact that the slots measure received only 52 votes of a possible 100 in the House. There are only 35 republicans in the House, so, accounting for the fact that a few republicans probably favored the slots, a whole boatload of democrats, supposedly in the horsey set’s pocket, voted against slots at the tracks. Beshear spoke of the need for a revolution to turn out the repubs in the Senate, but he’d better be thinking about the mini-revolution against the slots in his own party. He campaigned on the promise of bringing more gambling to Kentucky (anyone for casinos these days?), but so far hasn’t come close to delivering.

For his part, Jones might be remembered as the governor of the 1990s who, with the help of the usual (at that time) huge democrat majority allowing for all legislation to be discussed, cussed and passed in just the democrat caucuses, got a bill through to help the horse industry. Under the legislation, who got the first payout? Jones, of course! Jones and his band of jolly lawmakers also managed to bring about the exodus from the state of all but one health-insurance provider. Something like 45 of 46 insurers decided that the state government would not run their businesses for them. Jones discovered that the companies didn’t respond like stall-knockers and horses.

If the horseracing industry is dependent upon state-supported gambling for its existence and thus feels that it deserves special treatment, what about all the other industries in the state that need help? How much of the tax from the slots should go to them? Or…should every industry or store in the state be allowed to place slots on their premises in order to jack-up their revenue and thus stay in business?

KEEP will say a big NO to that, since this means a diminution of its take. Only a very small segment of the population in Kentucky gives a fig about horseracing. The citizens stay away from the tracks by the millions, and always have; however, multitudes of them will go to the corner service station/convenient store to give the lottery a chance to steal their hard-earned cash.

KEEP knows this, so it must insist that the “horsey set” is more equal than all other enterprises. Instead, its members should figure out how to make their operations pay off. The casinos on the Ohio River haven’t bankrupted Kentucky yet; nor have they sunk Kentucky horseracing. Or…the operators, if they can’t make it, can do what myriads of other business people have done…go out of business and find something else to do. A lot of folks used to mine coal and raise tobacco the hard way in Kentucky – perhaps “Signature Industries?” Has anyone, including the governor and legislature, done anything to cover their costly adjustments? Of course not…they can just eat cake…but not the horsey set! It’s special!

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

BC, Dementia &"Slots Bill"

Back in August 2006, Lexington Herald-Leader Boy Columnist (aka Larry Keeling) allowed as how he had been having health problems accruing to inhaling the fumes of his lawn mower, perfectly understandable, but no one else seems to ever have that problem out in the wide-open spaces of lawns so maybe the fumes were coming from something else…h-m-m. His mower could have caused a bit of dementia, however, that might have carried over to the present day.

Back in the Fletcher administration along about the year 2006, Boy Columnist almost suffered typographical trauma (same as “shocked and appalled” for politicians) when he discovered to his sanctimonious horror that Fletcher had cost the state (gasp) $5,000 for the installation of an extra door in his office. In light of that magnitude of perfidy, what could a Boy Columnist (especially of the “sacred journalist” genre) do but point out that the governor was a rogue, a spendthrift, a ne-er-do-well out to raid the state till for all he could? BC got into high gear and let the guv have it with both barrels of deadly Word Processor.

But…about that dementia! During the special session of the Legislature just now ended, House Speaker Stumbo okayed some new rugs and wires for legislative offices that cost some $230,000, or 46 times as much as Fletcher spent on the door. That’s 4,500% more than the door. Question: Did Boy Columnist ever mention this? I don’t think so, but it would have been so natural…so fair…to have done so, especially for a “sacred journalist,” so one has to conclude that Boy Columnist would have had to be crazy not to have done so, fairness being so important and all to the Fourth Estate. If I’m wrong, my apologies to BC!

Now, about the slots thing. Boy Columnist has plugged so hard for the slots to be placed at the racetracks that one could almost believe he had a stake in the whole thing. Slots Bill was his character (or horse) and he rode it for all it was worth, even though his own editorial board wrote a “thumbs down” on the whole and perfectly transparent effort by the “horsey set” to pad their paddocks with green not made of grass.

Without the slots, the public was led to believe by the “set” and such folks as the guv and speaker, that the state was irretrievably doomed to bankruptcy. As an aside, these rich folks also stated that the slots would just happen to save their businesses. Problem: The Senate deep-sixed the slots gimmick and the Legislature took care of the budgetary problems, thus proving that the slots were never necessary to save the state.

So…after shilling long and hard for the money-people and coming out on the short end, Boy Columnist is now busily pointing out the lawmakers who both opposed the slots and are standing for reelection next year. Actually, Slots Bill never got out of the Senate Committee, so the perpetrators of this profound Slots Bill pooh-poohing were not hard for even someone with leftover-lawnmower Post-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder to finger. Chalk one up for BC, now hard on the campaign trail. Who knows…maybe Boy Columnist will desert the editorial board and become a consultant for KEEP next year in seeing that these dastardly destroyers of Slots Bill get their due.

The most profound of the many smells of this affair is the notion by so many legislators and newsies that the public is not only stupid but is certainly to be damned with torpedoes full ahead vis-à-vis raiding the state till and buying off the state government in behalf of greed. The slots thing was never about enhancing the state treasury. It was always about appeasing a special-interest group – the horsey set, whose mantra is that slots must be ONLY at racetracks and nowhere else, notwithstanding that the LOTTERY is everywhere anyone wants to install it. That’s called fairness, but the smoothies are not interested in that.

The bottom of the barrel was scraped when Stumbo made as if to convince the public that slots (probably unconstitutional anyway) would pave the way for erecting all kinds of buildings all over the state. What rubbish! The lottery was supposed to save education (while KERA damned it) back in the 1990s, but the lottery money went right into the general fund, with the school-folks left to eat cake. The Legislature made sure to put it there, where it could be “porked-out” and used to enhance what? Why…incumbency, of course!

So…Boy Columnist is left to ride Slots Bill…right out to pasture. He opined on 25 June that the democrats must get credible candidates lined up to change the Senate next year, assuming some can be found, and that Slots Bill should then be back in the starting-gate at the first opportunity.

And so it goes.

Jim Clark

IMAGE Is Everything!

Dear Car Czar Rattner:

You have been in your job salvaging the auto industry for a few months now, with only two companies going bankrupt (May I presume to compliment you?), but, while recognizing your accomplishments and obvious ability, I write to offer the services of the Institute for Modifying All Government Entities, known in Washington and throughout the world by its acronym, IMAGE. Its purpose is to create for the public a persona in keeping with the requirements of any government job. IMAGE’s success is universally recognized. For instance, IMAGE taught a usually frowning Jimmy Carter his famous smile, as well as how not to break his face while exercising it, though in one lapse after terminating his IMAGE-contract he did throw a jaw out of place, keeping him quiet for three weeks, which many believe led to his presidency.

Perhaps IMAGE’s most renowned success was accomplished some time ago when it made Dick Cheney appear to be human and taught Bill Clinton how to be convincing in claiming to feel everyone’s pain and how to successfully handle perjury by redefining the word is. If Secretary Hillary Clinton had been a client of IMAGE, she would never have concocted that yarn about coming under sniper fire in Bosnia in 1996, where people are still laughing and celebrate SNIPER DAY every March 25. Unfairly, she claimed IMAGE was too expensive.

You are a special case, since both you and the republicans have made it clear that you know nothing about automobiles, which ordinarily would amount to a disqualifier, although it was mean of some conservative, rabid, right-wing talking-heads to claim that you don’t even know how to check the oil. This being the case, an agency at IMAGE has been personalized just for you. It is the Clutch Headquarters for Rehabilitating YUGO Sedans, Lost Edsels and Rattner, known as CHRYSLER, for short. I hope you won’t be offended in being grouped with famous losers, but I hope you get the point that you will be a loser if you do not sign with us for a makeover.

There’s another reason for mentioning the YUGO and Edsel, namely, that the president is on the record for wanting everyone to ride in the smallest car possible, as well as in a car that is likely to fail so often that people will simply turn to walking, thus saving the polar bears and keeping Al Gore away from Washington, where he incites riots by ending his congressional-hearing appearances by screaming (taught by Howard Dean) “Burn, Baby, Burn!”

CHRYSLER will rehabilitate your image from that of a high-stakes Wall Streeter (not too popular right now) and political fund-raiser to one exuding engineering genius, vision, and friend to Treasury Secretary Geithner, meaning that you will no longer have to genuflect at his throne at Treasury’s conference room for permission to do everything, but can walk right into his office and genuflect in privacy. CHRYSLER will also give you a crash course in understanding the internal combustion engine and how to fertilize whatever crop is used in making ethanol, up to and including marijuana. As a starter (no pun intended), a spark plug is not a stripper at O’Hannigan’s Emporium, and ethanol is not drilled for in Texas.

It will be necessary for you to become teleprompter-savvy, since you will be required to make speeches and conduct press conferences. The president, as you know, has just sent out a memo to all czars requiring this expertise, but also requiring that czars be able to speak off-the-cuff when a teleprompter fails or when one is assailed by a Fox News reporter. IMAGE’s agency for carrying out this task is called Gear-up for Motormouthing, or GM, for short. Plainly speaking (unusual, granted, in Washington), GM will prepare you to state the obvious in a way that makes you appear to be advancing profound knowledge, the premise being that the citizenry is too dumb to know the difference. This will be doubly important when you appear in a Congressional hearing, since most of the lawmakers actually do fit that description.

An important part of GM is the Bureau for Labeling Accurately Bureaucrats, Blather and Erratic Rhetoric, known, of course, as BLABBER. This agency will help you especially understand your fellow czars. For instance, you need to know if Regulatory Czar Sunstein, who has no practical experience in management or government, is actually regulating anything or just running the OMB while at the same time running off his mouth about the importance of his job. Example of BLABBER’s acumen: Treasury Secretary Geithner never finishes a three-syllable word in public, or even a two-syllable word if he’s explaining policy anywhere, the theory being that no one will ever know what he meant in order to criticize. So…you take him at his word, which amounts to both blabber and erratic rhetoric, and act accordingly. Actually, he is a good role model for you.

You will not be alone in being an IMAGE client. The rumor is that Vice President Biden, who was appointed stimulus-overseer czar in February, has no idea where the stimulus money has gone and therefore will soon approach IMAGE for help in acquiring a persona indicating that he knows to the penny where stimulus money, for instance in fighting obesity, is being spent 24/7. IMAGE is gearing-up for him by establishing an agency to be known as the Bureau for Indentifying and Defining Economic Nitwits, or BIDEN, for short. When you engage our services, you will be taken off the list.

Respectfully,
I.M. Reverself, CEO
IMAGE

And so it goes.

Jim Clark