Durbin - Dimwit or Traitor?

Office of Senator Dick Durbin
Memo to all staffers, both in Washington and all regional offices in Illinois

***It has come to my attention that someone, no doubt from the White House or Rush Limbaugh’s clambake or Bill O’Reilly’s snake-pit, has leaked to the press that I am a Kleepdemoniac Klan Kapitan in the Illinois KKK, and that the Klan, at my direction, is going to burn crosses at Guantanamo on July 4 bearing the flaming message that American GIs Are Lynch-Bait. There is no – REPEAT – no truth to this, and anyone repeating this slander will be assigned to the Pol Pot Reeducation Cadre heading soon to Cambodia for indoctrination in the “Glory of the Killing Fields,” an “Introduction to the Koran,” and “The Art of Flushing Pictures of Rumsfeld and Cheney Down the Toilet or Liming Them in an Outdoor Privy, Whichever is Available.” Volunteers for this activity will also be accepted, and anyone who is interested may apply to my public affairs officer, but must give proof of at least one year served in an accredited penitentiary or work-camp to be eligible. In lieu of such proof, a recommendation from the Rev. Jesse Jackson will be accepted, with the provision that the applicant be from Illinois, have proof of at least four dead relatives voting in Chicago in the last election, and furnish his/her/its own subsistence from RAINBOW/PUSH/COALITION.

***I do not find it funny that there is a sign in red letters every morning on the outer door of my office that replaces the one with my designation as Assistant Democrat Leader (Whip) and bears the caption DURBIN’S GULAG. The culprit committing this dastardly deed, when apprehended, will be turned over to the Capital Police with my recommendation that he/she/it be charged with subversion, and my further application will be made to the court that he/she/it be shipped to Siberia without an overcoat and gloves for 50 years or death, whichever comes first (permission granted by President Putin as revenge for pulling a hamstring imitating the Bush swagger). This is a show of magnanimity on my part, since a death-by-firing-squad sentence for such an act against a U.S. Senator would be appropriate. Anyone having knowledge as to the identity of this hoodlum should come forward with that information, no matter if acquired through eavesdropping even on a relative, and will be rewarded with an autographed CD/DVD of the Dean Scream©. If it is discovered that a person with knowledge of the crime has not come forward, that person will be summarily fired and his/her/its family will be barred from any government job or unemployment insurance in Illinois or Massachusetts, the latter state upon the permission of Senators Kennedy and Kerry. This is doubly significant, since Senator Kerry WAS in Cambodia on Christmas Day 1968, notwithstanding the official record that he was nowhere near the place.

***There have been reports that some staffers have been lax in fund-raising, and a psychiatrist from the former Goebbels Institute of Mind-Management and Individual Collection Kinetics for Recalcitrant Yahoos (GIMMICKRY, for short) has indicated that staffers, comparing them to the latest victims of football/basketball/baseball/poker jargon, have lost their Focus and need to greatly increase their powers of concentration. This being the case, and in a patriotic reversal of the Bush policy of rigorous interrogation, a facility known as the Durbin Concentration Camp will soon be established – with Fidel Castro’s permission, of course – just outside the Cuba-side Main Entrance to Guantanamo. To enhance the importance of the indoctrination process, and to impress upon staffers the absolute necessity for loyalty, arm-twisting ability, and obedience, only one meal a day (cabbage soup on all but Thursdays, when a chicken wing will replace the soup) will be served; at certain times the lights will be left on 24/7, the better to enhance attention to the process. Those who fall behind in their improvement may be chained to the floor occasionally to focus their thinking, but for never more than a day. Minority Leader Reid has read the Durbin Concentration Camp into the Congressional Record, and is advising DNC Chair Howard Dean upon its availability to all DNC staffers. In a magnanimous gesture, Chair Dean has offered unlimited permission to use the DEAN SCREAM© to help participants focus, obviously with no royalties to himself for the privilege. There will be an incidental fence around the facility, but it will be only 20 feet high with no more than two rolls of razor wire on top. It is merely meant, of course, to help participants concentrate, and no concentration camp would be complete without such a fixture. Former GIMMICKRY representatives have noted this feature to be of inestimable value, and we all know how effective it was between East- and West-Germany before Reagan shot off his mouth to Gorbachev and in an un-American show of strength scared the poor man into tearing it down.

***It has been bandied about in the news media (at least the liberal/socialist/Moyers-PBS media) that I have apologized for remarks alleged to be critical of American policy and personnel in Guantanamo, comparing such to Nazism/Fascism, Nazi Concentration Camps, the Holocaust, Pol Pot and the “killing fields,” and the Soviet Gulags. Please be advised that I have done no such thing. A careful reading of my two statements regarding the initial remarks of June 14 will indicate that I only mentioned those who might be offended, and that I in no way suggested that I was wrong. This is an important matter for young staffers, since they can learn something about how to parse words, in much the same fashion as former president Clinton, with respect to what “is” is. Also, please note from the tape of my last statement, made on the Senate floor, my use of feigned emotion remarking an almost tearful breakdown. I learned this skill from Michael Moore, who has taught me how to feign emotions of laughter, surprise, melancholy, mourning, pain, etc. The efficacy of my effort was immediately seen in the statements of Senators McCain and Lieberman remarking my bravery and courage in admitting whatever it was that they thought I had admitted. Apparently, either each senator’s elevator did not reach to the top floor with regard to my words, or they were just sucking-up, a normal procedure in the Senate. In addition, I have personally called at the embassies of Germany, Cambodia, and Russia to apologize to those countries for comparing them to the bloodthirsty savages comprising the U.S. military establishment at Guantanamo.

***There will be a staff party at the downtown Hooters after the close of business today to celebrate, among other things, the Durbin Concentration Camp and the re-indoctrination trip to Cambodia. Hooters has set aside one Men’s Room that will be used for a ceremonial flushing of a copy of my so-called apology, along with a copy of the U.S. Military Uniform Code of Justice (or whatever it is). Everyone is invited to attend, and those with a dead relative who voted anywhere in Illinois last year will be eligible for a door-prize.

And so it goes!

Jim Clark