It’s just past one a.m. in the little room off the Oval Office and Dr. Jekyll and his alter ego Mr. Hyde are meeting with President Obama and his press czar, Jay Carney, hereinafter referenced as J, H, O, and C, respectively, if not necessarily respectfully.
**O: Glad you could make it guys, you’ve always been a big help when I need…
**J: Does he never learn, Edward Hyde? We are not guys, especially to the colonists. We are sirs…okay we can be blokes here, Barry since this is so-o-o informal and…
**H: Quite so, Henry Jekyll, but I refuse to meet in this notorious room again. Either we go into the Oval Office or I – as you colonists so aptly put it – take a powder. You asked advice about the Tea Party in this room when last we met, meaning this room is profane and in deference to King George the Third, I…oh, speaking of powder, did you line up the howitzers and blow away the tea party as I might have suggested then?
**J: Easy there, Edward! He just means that the Tea Party should have been sweetened with your profound rhetoric, Barry, absolutely deep-sixed by eloquence and intellect delivered by state-of-the-art teleprompters…most likely my suggestion, though I don’t remember much except how Slick Will made this into a fun room, fit for any kind of orgy, real or imagined. (all enter the Oval Office) And these Styrofoam cups have to go, Barry…it’s fine china for tea or nothing.
**O: Jay, go rouse the kitchen crew and get some appropriate china and delicacies up here in ten minutes or less but don’t mention why…and bring me a beer.
**C: Aye aye sir, commander-in-chief, I’m on my way. (leaves)
**J: Commander-in-chief, Barry? That sounds so…well…haughty.
**O: I’ve commanded everyone to address me that way now since my hugely successful invasion of Libya and the offing of Osama. This month, navy obedience is the order of the day…or something like that…something military, in other words. I checked with the Salvation Army.
**H: Oh, I say, how quaint! Anyone gets out of line gets a good lashing at the mast…39 stripes, blood splattering all over the Congress…
**J: What Edward means is that the mark of a leader is his willingness to exact discipline and…
**H: Ah yes, Barry – Libya! What a stroke of genius and it took only seven months to put the buggers away. All those neighborhoods blown to smithereens by your bombs…blood running in the streets. I watched it every night on BBC, but, I say, Barry, I didn’t know you could invade a sovereign nation by executive order…reminds me of the glory days of Admiral Nelson.
**O: I went to the UN, Edward, or rather, I sent three ladies to work their charms on the UN and say that Qaddafi was mean and had to go and that I could ignore the Congress, the Constitution and the War Powers Act and anything else like maybe a town ordinance or something and just blow him away. (Carney returns, carrying huge tray)
**C: The kitchen crew told me where to go, Commander-in-chief, so I…
**J: Egad, Edward, all that mismatched china…and doughnuts…ugh! When will the colonists ever become civilized?
**H: I can see the papers now, Henry. Commander-in-chief has White House kitchen crew drawn and quartered – navy stuff there, Barry – for disobeying direct order, especially concerning crumpets.
**J: What Edward means, Barry, is that your justice is swift and that the kitchen crew loses a quarter’s pay – three months.
**O: Can we just get down to business. This beer is warm, Jay…ugh. And why are we here? I forgot and even JohnKerry couldn’t remember.
**C: Sorry, commander-in-chief, but the kitchen crew thought it was for our visitors – they drink it warm, you know. And I checked the teleprompter while I was gone and found that we’re here because of the Arab Spring.
**O: Okay, so my problem, gentlemen, is that there’s a threat of an American Spring coming up and…
**J: Aha! And if it goes like the Arab Spring last year, you might be on the way out…is that it, Barry?
**H: Oh…how marvelous! Blood in the streets of Washington, just like 1812 when we burned the place down…oh, hoo hah, what a show! Do you think there might be some beheadings…all those Muslims lurking here and there?
**J: What he means, Jay, is that your problem is serious since the apparatchiks also have to go when there’s a revolution.
**C: H-m-m-m.
**O: Let’s be serious here. We’ve just had Occupy Wall Street terrorists camping out in public parks and…
**H: And doing rapes and all sorts of strange things and using the police cars for bathrooms…
**J: Cool it, Edward. What Edward means, Barry, is that protests can be dangerous.
**C: You think we don’t know that, Henry? Look what commander-in-chief did in Libya to celebrate the Arab Spring…all those dead Libyans. Now we have all those students raising hell about Wall Street and…well, just about all the czars in the White House came from Wall Street. We’ve been in bunker mode, hoping the idiots wouldn’t find out.
**O: Let’s stick to the subject, Jay. Henry, what should I do about an American Spring? I can call out the troops, you know, but that seems so…well somehow fey.
**H: Oh, hahahahaha, I say bring out the Bradleys and mow ’em down on Pennsylvania Avenue.
**J: He asked me, Edward, not you. Edward just means that a show of force is sometimes necessary, Barry. He’s not suggesting you pull an Assad on them…just scare the bejesus out of them but don’t use m-16s.
**H: I say, Barry, it’s like FDR said…the only fear is fear itself or something like that. Besides, you did in the Libyans, so the only enemy you have to fear is by way of reprisal…
**J: And reprisal means the Libyans and the Libyans couldn’t beat your Girl Scouts right now, Barry, since you pulverized them although it took months, not days, as you promised. So, as you Americans say…not to worry! There will be no American Spring.
**C: In other words (starts singing), happy days are here again.
**O: Stuff it Carney and go get me a cold one.
**J: Come, Edward, I can stand the colonists for just so long…uncivilized creatures!
And so it goes.
Jim Clark
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