It’s just after midnight and White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel sets up a conference-call with Senator Max Baucus, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Vice President Joe Biden, hereinafter referenced, respectively, as R, M, N, and J.
*J: This better be good, Rahm, I’m already in bed and eating my popcorn and watching old wrestling films on TV.
*M: Yeah, R-R-R-Rahmy old boy...I’m into my p-p-p-artisan...n-n-no..make that n-n-n-non-partisan speesh for tomorrow and I...
*R: Good grief! You in your cups again, Max? I thought you only did that on the Senate floor...hoo-hah...even old McConnell was embarrassed when you...
*N: I’m not amused, Rahm, at this hour. I was helping my husband count our money...damn that minimum-wage law...it’s...
*M: You mean t-t-the one w-w-where you tried to get your old m-m-man’s fruit-pickers off and...
*R: Okay...enough already! You guys can cast aspersions on your own time. This is the White House speaking...my time.
*J: Just hold it there, Rahm. If anything happens to POTUS, I’m in the catbird’s seat, so I outrank you, meaning you’re on my time...a perfectly good three-letter word – TIME...that’s T-I-M-E!!
*N: Good grief, Joe. Your last three-letter word was “jobs,” and Rush Limbaugh is still laughing about that on his radio slaughterhouse every day.
*M: Hoo-hah, J-J-Joe, thash even better than sp-sp-sp-spending our way out of bankruptcy...or was it b-b-borrowing or was it...
*N: Shut up, you drunk, so Rahm can get on with it. I lost my place listening to you and now I have to start back with the thousand-dollar bills. What’s up, Rahm...has POTUS declared war on Pakistan like he said he would if...
*R: If you’re trying to be funny...oh, never mind, Nancy. Listen up, everybody. I just got word from our chief propagandist that...
*J: I guess you mean Chris Matthews, Rahm, and I’m telling you that anybody whose leg tingles when the president speaks is my kind of...
*R: Naw...it’s Olbermann this month, Joe...they take it by turns. Olbermann used to gnash his teeth when Bush spoke, which automatically qualifies him for unique responsibilities now. He called me this afternoon and said Napolitano is in deep do-do over that dumb kid trying to blow himself out of his skivvies on that airplane and into paradise. We need a plan to keep her safe until this thing blows over.
*M: Did you shay shomething about somebody’s skivvies blowing off...oh ha, ha...w-w-watsch out, Melodee, dear, don’t spill that...
*R: Either sober up for a minute or get off the line, Max. We gotta problem here. You’ve been the point-man on health-care so maybe you can prove that health-care is dead if Napolitano gets the horse’s head in her bed by the republicans, meaning that she loses Homeland Security and the old codgers who refuse to die just keep on getting Medicare.
*M: Who’s thish Napolitano, Rahmy? I b-b-bet he’s not Irish-h-h. Is he in the M-M-Mafia, maybe? We could use some of those...but h-h-hey...this-sh-sh-ish is not Chicago...right, Rahm? Hoo-hah!
*R: Not funny, Max! Janet Napolitano...that’s Janet...a she, not a he, and she’s Homeland Security czar.
*J: Watch it there, Rahm. As you know, POTUS has put out the word that “czar” is not to be used anymore...that can be a disastrous three-letter word...czar...reminds everyone of the Soviets. Besides, the Patriot Act is still in force and this phone may be bugged. When’s POTUS gonna get rid of that? The ACLU sends me 500 e-mails every damn day about that.
*N: Sheesh! You guys threaten sanity. It’s even worse than when the CIA lied to me and the whole Congress back in 2002 or sometime back then.
*J: Fluffernutter, Nancy...fluffernutter! In case you don’t remember, that’s the word I invented back in 2008 to describe everything John Edwards said while he was chasing that skirt. Maybe you just didn’t understand...
*N: Stuff it, Joe. I’m like John Kerry. I don’t make mistakes. I don’t fall off my skis...oh no, the dog chewed up a CD and three T-bills while I was wasting my time...
*R: Back on the subject, you people! How can we keep Napolitano in her job? POTUS has already thrown enough people under the bus. If he gives her the treatment, his approval ratings will go down among all Italian-Americans. He lost enough folk in Chicago alone to hurt us when he distanced himself from the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, and we lost a lot of ACORN nutcases when he said he hardly knew Bill Ayers.
*M: Bill Ayers, R-R-Rahmy? Oh y-y-yeah...he’s the guy t-t-that was-sh under the ground in b-b-bad w-w-weather back when he was in...where was-sh that...the P-P-Penta...
*R: That does it. Get off the line, Max. [click] Okay, Nancy, Joe. We gotta problem here. Stop counting, Nancy! Try to remember the difference between three and four, Joe. Come up with something.
*N: Easy, Rahm. Janet’s a female Italiano ethnic. Tell Olbermann to stop gnashing his teeth and biting the microphone long enough to make a big deal out of that. Nobody using sound judgment would give the axe to an Italian-American-woman. Also tell him to stop frothing at the mouth when he’s on the air. That scares small children...so much stuff about vampires these days!
*J: What about McConnell and the republicans, Nancy? They mean to hurt us on this.
*N: Does it occur to you that there are some Italian-American republicans, too? Okay...so there aren’t many, but throwing any ethnic under the bus, except white Anglo-Saxon-Protestant-males, is so politically incorrect these days that not even republicans will take the chance to criticize.
*R: I think you’re on to something, Nancy.
*J: Yeah (crunch, crunch). Get ’im, Hulk.
[click, click, click]
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
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