DNC Memorandum #1

From the office of the ChairWOMAN, 12 May 2011

***Listen UP! I’m the first WOMAN ever to be elected to a complete term as DNC ChairWOMAN. I’m known as aggressive, opinionated, always right, and a slave-driver (not a politically incorrect term, since I say it isn’t) who expects undivided loyalty to the CAUSE, 99% of which is ME. Step out of line or, worse, don’t follow the line, and I’ll give you the “Trump Treatment.” For recent Harvard grads on staff, that means the “pink slip.” For recent Yale grads, that means “FIRED.” For everyone else, it means long days and nights on the job, no excuses, no refusals to watch Michael Moore movies (no matter how stupid), and a weekly essay of no less than 1,000 words on the accomplishments of the president. Anyone caught plagiarizing will be disciplined by listening to tapes of all the Biden speeches since 1988. In the meantime…hello there! My favorite food is cactus casserole; favorite pastime, exercising at my George Bush dartboard; favorite TV personality, Chris Matthews, with whom I share leg-tingling when POTUS teleprompts. DNC Memos are being renumbered, the last one being #22 in March – a brand new start is especially needed since the House was lost in November and POTUS polls are not good.

***There’s been talk, I understand, that I can’t be both DNC ChairWOMAN and a House member, along with the suggestion that I choose one or the other or at least forfeit the $200 thou this job pays. Be advised that I’m known as the bionic WOMAN and can function 24/7, be fully awake in three seconds flat at three a.m. (eat your heart out, Hillary – little joke there), and have better sense than to pass up a good thing. The former chairman, a mere man, was a governor when he took this job and nobody complained. Both jobs are fulltime requiring fulltime pay and I’ll be devoting at least 100 hours a week total to the efforts, especially since my vote in the House is worthless now anyway. Besides, Speaker Pelosi has approved of this arrangement, and the wag who suggested she did because she wanted me out of her hair will be disciplined when found.

***The president has directed that DNC Headquarters will be the greenest spot on earth. Either arrive at work by foot or on bicycles or in electric cars (not hybrids, for Princeton grads…they use gas). Those without funds for an electric car or fear that an encounter with an 18-wheeler in one would mean certain death are instructed to look for work elsewhere. Thermostats will be set at 60 degrees in cold weather and 81 degrees in warm weather, except for my office and adjacent kitchen and conference-room, which has to be used for consulting with people unused to the rigors of community-organizing and therefore susceptible to physical trauma. Only one panel of toilet paper per trip to the john is allowed and those who have a problem with that may shower on their breaks up to three times a day. Tires on vehicles will be checked weekly and staffers not obeying the PSI requirements will be docked $5.00 per tire. Lighting will be used only when speeches are being prepared. On cloudy days staffers may use flash-lights but only those with rechargeable batteries. Miners’ helmets are recommended but not required. I’m making a zone within five miles of Headquarters a smoke-free area, so be forewarned. Processed food or soft drinks may not be brought in lunches, and anyone smelling of a Big Mac when returning from lunch will attend nutrition conferences weekly for a year. This is just a heads-up…more rules will be forthcoming.

***The president has requested a red/yellow/black/white paper to be prepared detailing the reasons he decided to bomb Libya, felt it necessary to announce his decision in Brazil, then handed the matter off to NATO ten days later. Since his actions have caused sudden death and much other mangling to no telling how many Libyans, who have never posed a threat to this country, some callow Congressmen have wondered about a hearing on the matter since they were never consulted. The president would do this but he’s in campaign mode now and hasn’t the time. Besides, he knew there were good reasons but has forgotten them in the wake of handling all the world’s troubles from San Francisco eastward to San Francisco and single-handedly getting rid of Osama bin Laden in the process. Do NOT – repeat, DO NOT – mention that there’s oil in Libya or that al Qaeda is behind the uprising.

***As the campaign progresses, the theme is to be “Saving the Future,” especially important since the recent past has been so completely lost. Please note that in keeping with POTUS’s key position, George Bush is to be blamed for everything bad. Also note that POTUS is deep into prayer affairs now – Easter prayer, breakfast prayer, and the latest, Latino prayer this morning. He quoted Deuteronomy (not Geronimo for recent Wellesley grads) this morning: “Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt.” In case some of your Town Hall people view that as degrading to Jews, Egyptians, or both, make certain that POTUS didn’t mean either population is strange but deserves love anyway, the reasons for which are left up to you.

***The watchword for POTUS has become “gutsy” or “gutsier” or, depending on the crowd, “gutsiest.” This has arisen from the Osama-caper, but staffers are warned not to give any credit to CIA Director Panetta, who rumormongers insist had the whole thing planned out for a long time. It was POTUS’s call, the gutsiest one made since Lincoln sent Sherman through Georgia. The rumor that POTUS made the call while making a quadruple-bogey on a par-3 is untrue. It was only a triple-bogey.

***That wraps it up for now. For the next week at ten a.m., I Am Woman by Helen Reddy will be played over the intercom. I hope you will be standing, the same as if you were listening to America the Beautiful…you know, the national anthem.

And so it goes.
Jim Clark