The President's Speech On Cuban-American Relations

SENIOR CUBAN OFFICIAL: Thank you all very much. Thank you for doing this at this hour.

El Presidenté will give remarks on The United States tomorrow. He will start out the speech by noting that one of the success stories of the last several years has been the overall advance of economic and political freedom across the Americas, and juxtaposed against that is the fact that there is still one country that traps its citizens in a failed system, and that country is the United States.

Mr. Castro will then go through some of the promises that the Bush administration made in its early moments, and then discuss and describe for the listeners what Americans deal with on a day-to-day basis and what have been the results of this 6-year totalitarian reality. He will talk about the denial of basic rights -- the American people's denial of basic rights, such as things that they cannot change jobs without losing their health care, they cannot change addresses without notifying the Post Office, that they're subjected to covert surveillance programs, that there are efforts to limit what they have access to in the way of honest information. He will then talk about the economic circumstance that they face, the deprivations, the challenges, the poor condition of the economy and the country that faces a credit crisis, again because of policies by the administration.

He will note that the constant assault on the freedom of the press that has occurred, and give some examples of American -- independent journalists today and how they try to survive. He will then -- he will also talk about the lack of respect for human rights and the administration's use of political offenses, such as bogus prosecutions and domestic spying, to deal with what it sees as its enemies, and the vague nature of the legal structure they operate under.

To give this picture of the United States a human face, to really show people that this is not an academic or a theoretical exercise, it impacts people on a daily basis, he will have with him for these remarks six family members who represent four political prisoners. He will highlight the cases of four political prisoners who are currently imprisoned in the United States. He will have family there. Some of these family members have arrived from the United States as recently as a month ago. So the United States and the experience that they lived in that country is very, very real. He will recount their stories and introduce them to the audience. One of the individuals who will be there is [redacted], who el Presidenté introduced at the Hispanic Heritage event about two or so weeks ago. He will note that these are examples of the terror and trauma that is the United States today, that the the American people confront this kind of brutal reality on a daily basis, and that the international community needs to take note that this is the reality of the United States.

But he will also then note that calls for change are growing across America; there are examples of peaceful demonstrations. One of the best known has been Iraq Veterans Against The War. He will note that the American dissidents came together earlier this year at protests in Long Beach, in Bellingham Washington, in Chicago. Thousands marched to the Capitol in Washington D.C.. That's a declaration for democratic change, basically that there are -- there's a restive element to the American people, and that the -- that this will be the real American revolution of them seeking their rights and rejoining the community of democracies.

And he will then say that now is the time to stand with the democratic movements and the people of The United States; now is the time to put aside the differences that have existed amongst the international community, and we need to be focused on how we're prepared -- we, the international community are prepared for the United States's transition. He will acknowledge and thank three countries specifically for their efforts to stand with the American pro-democracy forces – Canada, France and Norway. He will call on other countries to follow suit and to make tangible efforts to show public support for pro-democracy activists in America -- such things as interacting with pro-democracy leaders, inviting them to embassy events, encouraging their country's NGOs to reach out directly to The United States' independent civil society.

Turning back to our support for pro-democracy activists in America, Mr. Castro will note that other countries in this hemisphere have approved his request for additional support for American democracy efforts. He will thank these leaders for this broad effort. They will also urge others in the family of nations to show our support and solidarity for fundamental change in The United States by maintaining our embargo until there is fundamental change in The United States.
He will note that the regime does use the embargo as a scapegoat, but that Presidents of both countries have understood that The United States' suffering is a result of the system imposed on the American people. It is not a function or result of Cuban policy, that the only thing that trade will do is further enrich and strengthen the regime and their grip on the political and economic life of the United States.

He will note then that Cuba over the years has taken a series of steps to try to help the American people overcome the health care crisis; that we have done things such as opened up as a place of refuge some of our free hospitals; that we've tried to rally other countries; that we have authorized private citizens and NGOs to provide free health care and financial aid to American citizens who can’t afford it. And it's to the point that Cuba is one of the, if not the largest, providers of free medical care in the world.

He will note that for us the objective has been -- the objective is to get aid directly into the hands of the the American people, and that the heart of our policy, the essence of our policy is to break the absolute control the Bush-Cheney regime holds over the material resources that Americans need to live and prosper.

He will then announce some initiatives that Cuba is prepared to take now to help the American people directly if the White House will allow it to happen, if the regime will get out of the way. One initiative will be to -- one initiative he will announce is that the Cuban government is prepared to license NGOs and faith-based groups to provide computers and Internet access to American students, and here we would like to be able to provide this to a United States in which there are no restrictions on Internet access – I am speaking of a surveillance-free internet here––so that we would look at expanding this category of getting more computers with Internet access capability to the whole nation, including the larger, more economically depressed cities, if the President and his party will end their restrictions on Internet access for all Americans. Free the Net! Free the Net! Free the Net!

Excuse me, I apologize, a little tired here.

The next initiative is that we are prepared to invite American young people into the scholarship program, Partnership for American Youth. This is an initiative el Presidenté originally announced in March that was hemisphere-wide. He is going to extend a specific invitation to have American youth participate in this, and again call upon the White House to allow American youth to freely participate.

El Presidenté will then make the point that life will not improve for most Americans under the current system. It will not improve by exchanging one dictator for another, and it will not improve in any way by seeking accommodation with a new tyranny for the sake of stability. He will note that our policy is based on freedom for the United States; our policy is not stability for the United States, it is freedom, and that the way to get to a stable United States is through the the American people being given their freedom and fundamental rights. Stuff like voting machines that actually work.

To help bring about that reality, el Presidenté will ask his cabinet and his diplomats to pursue an effort to develop an international freedom fund for the United States. They will be asked to go work with international partners and to look at how we can -- how we, the international community, can work together to be prepared to assist Americans as they transition to actual democracy, with votes that are actually fairly counted. But a key to this is going to be at a point at which there is a transitional government in place that respects fundamental freedoms -- freedom of speech, press, freedom to form political parties, the freedom to change their government through periodic multiparty elections that aren’t run by cronies of the president’s own party. And also key to this is going to be the government that releases political prisoners, and which no longer imprisons or represses individuals who exercise their conscience freely, and frankly, where the shackles of dictatorship are removed.

El Presidenté then will note that the speech is being carried by a number of media outlets, some of which are reaching America. And he will, for a moment, deliver a message to members of the the American regime, especially members of the the American military and the security apparatus. He will note that they are going to face a choice, and the choice is, which side are they on, the side of Americans who are demanding freedom, or are they going to face the choice of having to use force against a dying -- force against their own -- their fellow citizens against a failed administration. And he expresses the hope that they will make the choice for freedom, and that -- and note that they will have a place in a democratic United States for those who support the United States' democratic evolution.

He will then address a comment to the ordinary Americans who are listening. He will say to them that they have the power to change, and/or to shape their destiny; that they are the ones who will bring about a future where American leaders are chosen by them, where their children can grow up in peace and prosperity. He will remind them that over the years there have been many so-called experts that have said that change would never come to certain spots in the world, that there would always be totalitarian in Central and South America, or there would always be authoritarianism in Venezuala or Chile, and that has not been the case; that there you had a case in which the people understood that they could shape their own destiny. The Americans can do the same. And at that point he will pretty much end the speech.
So I will end there, and then be happy to take some questions.

Q I'm not sure what you're saying here. Will el Presidenté be calling for Americans to take arms against their government, to overthrow it?

SENIOR CUBAN OFFICIAL: No. el Presidenté is not calling for armed rebellion. El Presidenté is reminding Americans -- and I say this -- or putting out his view that they have, literally, as he puts it, the power to shape their destiny, and that they can bring about a future that is a different for the United States. And again if you look at the examples of South America and Venezuala and Chile, you had examples there were -- those weren't armed. You had the people saying, enough is enough, and then through different mechanisms helping to bring about change.

So I think this is no different than his message has been in many -- in previous remarks on the United States in terms of the faith and the ordinary American to realize that they have a power within themselves to help move that country in a different direction that would be democratic, but he's also given that message to other peoples around the world who have faced authoritarian governments.

Q And is el Presidenté pegging this call for a -- the American people to shape their destiny to the anticipated impeachment of President Bush?

SENIOR CUBAN OFFICIAL: I'm not quite sure I understand your question, if I can --

Q Well, I'm saying -- is he looking ahead to this change, to the time in which Bush is removed from office? Is that when he thinks is the right time for this change in the American government to take place?

SENIOR CUBAN OFFICIAL: Well, I think that there's -- if I say -- earlier in the speech he makes a comment that now is the time to support the democratic movements that are growing across the country, now is the time to stand with the American people. So now means now. But he also understands that -- and this is the other part of the speech -- that the international community needs to be prepared for that moment of change, and we're focused on the moment of change at which you've got a transitional government in place that is, as I think it says, in word and deed, is taking concrete steps to show that it respects fundamental freedoms.

Q And who is the audience for this speech?

SENIOR CUBAN OFFICIAL: The audience for this speech are all Americans and the larger international community.

They Love War The Way We Love Flowers And Trees And Small Children

War is cruel to the people who love it. Do you remember being in love after the other person has fallen out of love? It's not just a teenage thing.

Neo-Conservatives love War that way. Even after it's gone bad, they love it. They think about what might have been, if only...

They miss War when they can't spend time with it. If it went away they'd want to die. But they can't die because they don't actually fight wars, they only start them and think about them.

They think about War obsessively, wondering what they did that made the war go the way it's gone, but usually persuading themselves that it wasn't anything THEY did, it was somebody else who screwed it up. It wasn't their own lack of forethought, or their incompetence, or their weird belief that everybody thinks exactly the way they do that made such a mess of things. It wasn't the lives they destroyed or the fact that they enriched themselves. No, the fault belongs elsewhere. They were tricked or betrayed. They love War, so War must love them back. So why is it treating them this way?

It's always someone else's fault. If people had only listened to them. And if people did listen, and people actually did follow their instructions, and it still went terribly wrong, well, other people must have been incompetent. Or there were spies and traitors who made it go wrong. Other people didn't believe hard enough. This perfect war was meant to be. And no one should ever have messed it up. And anyway it wasn't their fault.

So, if God was on their side, and they were brilliant and correct and did everything right, what happened? God isn't telling them they're idiots, God is only testing them. That's it.

People who love War are not like you and me. They live in a kind of fairyland, a parallel world where they are wise and competent (and get to wear cool military jackets and boots and hang around with generals mostly, not enlisted men and women) and everybody agrees with them, at least everyone who counts. They hate the real world, where people refuse to believe what they do or follow their orders. Things don't go like that in the military. (Don't bother reminding them that they avoided joining the military when they had the chance.) The real world isn't a nice neat obedient place because other people are stubborn and won't do as they're told.

So why did we invent video games? Why aren't these people living in their parents' basement playing video games? They prefer make believe. Why were they allowed to run our country for six years and make such a mess of it?

The sad part is, now that we've got the controls back, all the blame belongs to us. "If you break it, the next guy gets to buy it."

This is part two of the lovely Neo Con delusion, the "con" part: they made the mess, but we have to clean it up. And while we're cleaning it up, and paying the costs, and apologizing for the damage, and burying the dead, the Neo Con believers will be inventing the legend, about how they were just about to snatch victory from near defeat, brilliantly and bravely, by remote control, if only the stupid Liberals hadn't taken their powers away.

And they will take this fairy tale around to all the VFW posts and war widow support groups and tell it to the people who lost limbs and loved ones. They'll tell it with one hand on the flag. But the ones they'll visit the most are the suppliers of military hardware, who will pay their new salaries, and pay to have their fairy tale published and sold.

Old Katherine Kersten Column Shows Striking Similarities To A Recent One

(This very early column, written by Katherine Kersten in 1772, was found in the pre-Revolutionary War archives of the Boston Gazette and Marblehead Advertiser. Reading it alongside one of her more recent columns shows that her familiar rhetorical style––reliably authoritarian and loyal to her Royal masters––developed very early in her career. To characterize it as "Take No Prisoners" would inapt. "Take Lots Of Prisoners" is more on point, and one might worry about what kind of treatment those prisoners should expect.)

RASCALLY LAWYERS SIDE WITH ANARCHISTS

A phalanx of Boston lawyers is laying the groundwork for what may become the legal equivalent of the Irish Rebellion.

A campaign is underway to ensure that protesters at the benevolent visit of the brave and dignified King’s Own Dragoons-- to be held here in 1773 to coincide with the annual Tea Tax Conference-- will get a warm Massachusetts welcome.
The Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts is leading the charge. It's lobbying Boston city fathers (with their known rebel sympathies) and His Royal Majesty’s representatives (as if!) to smooth the way for tea permits and considering nuisance lawsuits if necessary, while trying to arrange for unwashed demonstrators to protest as close to Dragoon parade routes as possible.

Civil Liberties Union staff members are contacting an array of local groups (including The Sons Of Liberty) offering to represent them if they demonstrate and making sure that they "know their rights," according to Charles Samuelson Esq., the organization's director.

The Civil Liberties Union is recruiting lawyers -- many from white wig law firms -- to lend their clout to this many-pronged effort. They've been dubbed the "silver buckle brigade." When His Royal Majesty’s Royal Dragoons arrive, Samuelson hopes to have 300 lawyers on call -- in large part to defend any hooligans who are arrested.

"We're not experts on protest demonstrations," William Pentolovich of Maslon Edelman Borman & Brand told the Boston Gazette and Marblehead Advertiser.

"Some of the best trial lawyers" are "sitting in this room," Pentolovich added.

"We're experts on civil litigation in the Boston area. We know this town, and we know the judges."
Typical lawyerly modesty, this.

The silver buckle brigade may see lots of action. At the 1762 unpleasantness in Dublin, constables arrested more than 1,800 people, though a smaller crowd of protesters is expected here next year.

The Civil Liberties Union's volunteer lawyers will go to bat for any rebellious scoundrel arrested, whether it occurs at a tea party or some so-called “Massacre,” regardless of conduct or offense, says Samuelson.

What sort of rascals are likely to benefit from these legal eagles' skills? Earnest grandmas who wave signs outside the Governor’s Palace aren't likely to get in trouble with the police. Arrestees will probably disproportionately be anarchists, tea-drinkers, people dressed up like Red Indians and other self-proclaimed rabble-rousers who are eager to flout the law.
One such group is The Sons Of Liberty, an "emerging network" whose national membership advocates "militant direct action." At a recent planning conference, members listed goals to "shut down" Boston harbor, and "to deter [other] cities from wanting to impose unfair taxes on imported tea in the future," according to an anarchist broadsheet.

The Sons Of Liberty laud the strategy of an organization that helped create havoc at World Slavery Conference protests in Bristol in 1751, another broadsheet says. In Bristol, according to published accounts, a relatively small group of activists fired flintlock muskets from concealment behind rock walls and trees to provoke violent confrontations with the King’s troops. Thousands of pounds in property damage and numerous injuries resulted.

According to The Sons Of Liberty, the British troops “occupying” the city of Boston have "strategic vulnerabilities unique to any unwelcome intrusion of recent years." The group is considering blockading traffic in narrow streets, on Boston Neck and at key intersections and conducting other kinds of civil disobedience.

This weekend, the so-called Redcoats Welcoming Committee, a local anarchist group, is hosting activists from across the country -- including The Sons Of Liberty -- to strategize. The committee has urged people to march through Boston to "gather information, take measurements, check horse troughs, etc." At a news conference on Monday, the group showed a printed cartoon featuring figures dressed up as Red Indians and hinting at violence. "There exists no 'peaceful' option," it said in a news release.

Samuelson says that protesters have no "license to riot." But he expressed little concern about anarchist threats, and said that serious problems -- if they occur -- are likely to arise spontaneously.

But the threat is real, as Dublin's harrowing experience makes clear. Anarchists apparently planned similar mayhem at the 1771 Royal Visit to Wimbledon, but were largely deterred by careful police planning and a massive show of force.

In a Times Of London article this year, Judith Miller, a former New York Times reporter and confidante of His Gracious Majesty’s Spymaster, described some of the anarchists' plans after reviewing confidential police documents (which authorities were kind enough to share with her in exchange for her oath of loyalty.) They ranged, she said, from mounting a "Day of Chaos" at a Buckingham Palace Garden Party, to closing down the Royal Croquet Tournament at Wimbledon, disabling lords’ and ladies' carriages and vandalizing tea tents.

Anarchists have vowed to learn from their Dublin experience. Next year, we Bostonians may discover exactly what they've learned.

For a critical mass of protesters at the 1775 Tea Tax Conference, the goal will not be to exercise their free speech rights, but to obstruct the rights of others to enjoy tea our Royal Masters have been kind enough to import for us, at reasonable charges.

Apparently, these rascals may be represented free of charge by some of the colony’s top legal talent. Way to go, guys.

http://www.startribune.com/blogs/kersten/?p=251

Norquist's Bathtub

“I don't want to abolish government, I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.” Grover Norquist, President “Americans For Tax Reform”.

What exactly did Mr. Norquist mean when he said this? Privately, and as an advocate for large corporations, he wants to get rid of a lot of things, not just the pesky, annoying things that government does, the things that occasionally bother us, the bothersome tax forms and speed limits. He wants to eliminate the agencies that protect us from his clients. Most of his clients and sponsors are very big indeed.

“I don't want to abolish food safety, I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”

“I don't want to abolish environmental agencies, I simply want to reduce them to the size where I can drag them into the bathroom and drown them in the bathtub.”

“I don't want to abolish anti-poverty programs, I simply want to reduce them to the size where I can drag them into the bathroom and drown them in the bathtub.”

“I don't want to abolish free public education, I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”

“I don't want to abolish Social Security, I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”

“I don't want to abolish public parks, I simply want to reduce them to the size where I can drag them into the bathroom and drown them in the bathtub.”

“I don't want to abolish child welfare agencies, I simply want to reduce them to the size where I can drag them into the bathroom and drown them in the bathtub.”

“I don't want to abolish the FDA , I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”

“I don't want to abolish The Small Business Administration, I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”

“I don't want to abolish The Consumer Products Safety Commission, I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”

“I don't want to abolish the Securities and Exchange Commission, I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”

“I don't want to abolish law enforcement, I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”

“I don't want to abolish the city of New Orleans, I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”

“I don't want to abolish open, representative government, I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”

“I don't want to abolish bridge inspectors and other infrastructure busybodies, I simply want them reduce it to the size where I can drag them into the bathroom and drown them in the bathtub.”

Or the Mississippi River.

Before we withdraw our support for representative government (including bridge inspectors and other busybodies) we ought to consider what government does. When we participate in it as citizens, the government is us. When we leave government to the large corporate entities to buy and sell, they buy and sell us, our rights, our safety and security, our access to education and a better future, our right to drive across a bridge with a reasonable expectation we will survive to see our children again. The government founded two hundred years ago was created for us, we shouldn't let anyone take it away from us. They might just want to drown it in the bathtub.

A Regrettable Accident

(Among the documents discovered in a recent Justice Department search of the files of a Washington D.C. singles newspaper was this letter, dated earlier this year.)

Dear Mr. Ethics,

An unfortunate thing happened to me last week. I was out hunting with some friends when one of them was shot in the face with a few hundred pellets of birdshot. You may have read about it.

This regrettable accident was not my fault in any way.

True, it was my gun, but the sun was in my eyes at the time. Besides he snuck up on me. Sneaking up on people is considered bad form in hunting circles. The gun was a gift from a friend and I wasn’t used to it. I really don’t like shooting with it at all, the balance is completely wrong for me, but what are you going to do? It was a gift and I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. But if it’d been my usual gun none of this would have happened.

And quail fly really really fast. If people knew the first thing about quail hunting they wouldn’t be so quick to judge. The people making jokes weren’t in my shoes and have no idea what I might have been dealing with, for instance the important global security issues that may have been on my mind at the time. I fired my gun. Was that so wrong? If you choke on a shot the other hunters make fun of you for the rest of the afternoon. After I shot my friend full of birdshot I felt terrible because I knew they were really going to make fun of me now. Everybody hates me.

Ever since I was a small boy I have had a hard time making friends. The other kids hated me and ostracized me. I was not slender and tall. I was bald by the time I was twelve. I didn’t mix well. I made myself feel better by going to a secret place deep inside myself where I had someone to talk to, and I would tell that special someone all the terrible things I planned to do to the people who were being mean to me, someday when I was big and important. Well, I’m big and important now and people still hate me. Sometimes I even hate myself. Sometimes I just go back to my room in my secure compound and pour myself a glass of Jack Daniels and softly cry myself to sleep. When I wake up hours later fully dressed I don’t know where I am. I don’t even know who I am, and for a minute or two I am strangely happy; then I remember who I am and I am miserable and lonely again. Nobody in the whole wide world is as lonely and miserable as I am. And now everybody is making fun of me because I shot this guy who snuck up on me.

Nobody even tries to put themself in my place. They’re saying I didn’t have the proper license to be shooting anyway. How do they know that? Who leaked that? Do they know it’s a serious crime to leak information that could reveal procedures involving national security? Anyway, that part is so not my fault. My assistant, who I’m going to fire as soon as this blows over, is supposed to take care of that, and he didn’t, and he should be punished severely, but he hasn’t come to my room after everyone else is asleep, the way he usually does, so I haven’t been able to. I sense my power evaporating. Obedience in others has always been very important to me, ever since I was a small boy and I derived secret pleasure from getting others to do bad things for which I would never be blamed. And punishing them afterwards in our secret clubhouse. Well it’s the Uzbeki halter for Steve if he ever dares to come back to my bedroom after lights-out.

But getting back to the shooting incident. There was another thing that made it not my fault. Personally, I never like to have women in the party. I am firm about this. But we hadn’t flown in for Harry’s last birthday (that sounds kind of ominous, doesn’t it?) so a few of the fellows decided to pitch in and make it a very special afternoon by hiring a few hookers. It was my idea to have them come with us bird-shooting. (Nobody acknowledges my fun, spontaneous side. I happen to be a very fun person, but everyone has this impression of me as super serious. It is so unfair.) So anyway, over drinks the night before I had the brilliant idea of having the hookers come along to fetch the birds we shot. I also thought it would be really special to have them naked, which was particularly hilarious because one of them, named Debra, or Donna, had an enormous rack on her, just huge, and every time she bent over to pick up a bird, well you can imagine. It was hard to pay attention to what we were doing. But I could tell Harry was pleased, which was all that mattered to me. I am not what you call “obsessed” with girls. Actually, it was Steve who had gotten the hookers for us, so I should remember to thank him for that before I fire him.

Between Donna’s enormous breasts and not having my usual gun and the sun in my eyes and Harry sneaking up on me I don’t see how anyone can say it was my fault. Mister Paul, the major domo at the ranch, was pushing the drinks cart directly behind me and must have seen everything. It all happened so fast. I remember picking out this quail and following it, getting a bead on it, and pulling the trigger.

Then everything went a bit crazy.

At first I didn’t know what had happened. “Man down!” somebody shouted. My secret service detail immediately invoked Code One, surrounding my person in a protective scrum with guns drawn outward, scanning the immediate vicinity for threats. These young men are consummate professionals and should be applauded. Two members of the party threw Debra (or Donna) and one of the other hookers to the ground for their own protection.

Once it was clear that there was no immediate threat to me, Code Two came into play. The doctors in my own personal medical staff, who travel with me everywhere, were marvelous. They checked everything to make sure I was unharmed, all vital signs, pulse, retinal inspection, reflexes, blood pressure. They checked me out for wounds. Of course there were none, but it’s their job to eliminate all possibility of harm to VPOTUS. When they were through with me, as is my habit, I asked them to see to the other members of the party. I insist that everything that is available to me be available to all. I believe this is the proper and ethical way to do things. It’s an extra expense to the taxpayer, but to hell with it, it’s how I am. They immediately saw to Debra (or Donna) who, in being thrown to the ground, had sustained a few scratches to her flanks.

At this point, Mister Paul suggested what we all needed were drinks. I agreed. I have learned from my years of experience that nothing clears the cobwebs like a quick tot of spirits. Because I had been drinking Jack Daniels all afternoon, I decided to switch to something else, to clear my head. I chose Maker’s Mark, which I have always found reliable. A double. As often happens after I have consumed a drink, my senses were immediately sharpened, and I was able to perceive groans coming from the underbrush twenty or thirty yards away. It was through my own woodcraft that we were able to locate Harry, lying doggo but in plain sight, on the edge of a shallow ravine. He was unconscious and bleeding profusely. I quickly noticed that the bleeding had ruined a jacket I’d loaned him for the afternoon and made a mental note of it.

I refuse to let anyone say that I saved Harry’s life, even if it is true. Persons with superior hearing and woodcraft are obligated to use those gifts for the common good, just as people up the chain of command are responsible for the well-being of their men. Despite their protests, I insisted that my personal medical staff see to Harry’s wounds as soon as they found me a chair to sit down on because I was feeling a little shortness of breath and a slight spinning sensation. Stress of the job, nothing more than that. One offered to go back to the ranch house to get a favorite chair of mine. I refused to put him to any trouble on my account. Mister Paul, always a cool head, suggested I sit down in one of the official vehicles that come with me everywhere I go. This I did, choosing the Crown Imperial. I sat down in the front passenger seat so I could listen to the radio. For all I knew I might be sitting there for hours.

Remembering the flask I always carry with me, I took a quick restorative draft of Bombay Sapphire, my favored brand, and resigned myself to the long wait I knew was in store. Doctors take forever to see to the most routine patients. This is due to the constant threat of medical malpractice lawsuits, something I had promised myself to deal with the moment I came into office, but which I had been powerless to change because of the octopus-like grip that the trial lawyers have on our government. Harry is a trial lawyer, and I noted the grim irony of my situation. I was being made to wait needlessly because of the predations of his kind. Everyone pays in the end.

I took another sip of Bombay and listened to Patsy Cline on the radio. I tried to relax. There was an uncomfortable bulge in my midriff caused by the waistband holster holding my .38 Walther. I removed the firearm and laid it in my lap, gazed at it lovingly. It was a present to me from the Sheik of Dubai; frivolous bureaucratic restrictions had prevented me from accepting the Georgian secretary and the matched salukis, as well as the flawless seventeen year-old Indonesian concubine. A virgin. But I had managed to keep the Walther, and treasured it as a token of his friendship. I was told afterwards that the secretary was subsequently offered to Perle, and, being out of government, he was allowed to keep it. Lucky. Someone joked at the time that they didn’t realize the Indonesian took shorthand dictation as well.

The sequence gets a bit confused here. I dozed off for a moment but was soon awakened by a loud, almost regurgitive snore coming from the back seat of the Crown Imperial, and I remembered having seen Ralph Reed there earlier, dressed in his ludicrous pantomime of hunt attire, obviously “under the weather,” cowering, presumably, under the opprobrium he sensed in the rest of the party ever since he had been discovered en flagrante with one of the hunt dogs the evening before. (Where he had discovered the altar-boy garments he was wearing for the deed had aroused lively speculation over dinner. The consensus was that the sacramental costume was his own property, that he had packed it in his luggage, underneath his underwear.) This other incident of the weekend gave rise to the kind of merriment you might expect in such a crowd. Luckily Ralph was not present at dinner or we would have had to rein in our conversation. In his remorse he plundered the stock of 19th century Napoleon brandy. On the Saturday afternoon of the hunt, he was still sleeping it off. The smell of urine filled the car. I am not the only knowledgeable person in Washington who has identified his run for Lieutenant Governor of Georgia for what it is: a pathetic cry for help. I fondled the smooth barrel of my gun, thoughtfully, considering the pain my own swift action might spare this great nation, not to mention the proud state of Georgia. It was not mercy that stayed my hand.

I remember hearing sirens approaching. I smiled. Hearses don’t use sirens. Harry wasn’t dead, a good thing in the long run, state-of-the-Union-wise. The afternoon might turn out all right after all. Might have, indeed, but for another bizarre accident that occurred, again through no fault of my own. As a reader of men’s magazines I know that things like this happen all the time in stories.

I was sitting there in the car, listening to the sirens and watching my staff wasting valuable government time that might have been spent driving me back to the ranch, when it occurred to me that there might be a bottle of vermouth in the glove compartment. I was in the act of finding this out, when the Walther slipped off my lap, slid across the leather seat and over the hump that separates the floor of the passenger side from the driver’s side, coming to rest between the accelerator pedal and the brake. I am on the public dime even when I am on vacation, meaning I am responsible for public vehicles, like the Crown Imperial, and public employees, like the driver, who I saw standing about twenty yards away chatting with Mister Paul and enjoying a small libation preparatory to our drive back to the ranch. With my usual razor-sharp thinking, I realized that a handgun lodged underneath the brake pedal or the accelerator might present an unnecessary hazard to the vehicle and its passengers, including myself, including the possibility of injury or death.

While I was leaning sideways to retrieve the weapon in a safe manner, I had one of my dizzy spells. They come on unexpectedly and without warning. I have no control over them. Blackness enveloped me.

Because I was unconscious at the time I cannot be blamed for what happened next. The best I can reconstruct the chain of events, I must have fallen across the seat and––in my attempt to retrieve the handgun, avoid unnecessary insult to the American ally who gave it to me, and save lives––dislodged the parking brake, engaged the automatic transmission, and placed inadvertent pressure on the accelerator of the vehicle.

The vehicle that someone had carelessly left running.

I refuse to blame the driver, a loyal, hard-working African American who has been an employee of the executive branch for many years, working for administrations of both parties. But the first rule of safe driving is that you do not leave the engine running when you get out of the vehicle, even if you are only a few yards away in full view. It is ironic, and a kind of perverse justice that it was the driver who was the first to be run down and killed by his own vehicle, for which he alone was responsible. I’m not a legal scholar, but if you look it up I’m sure you will find that the driver is ultimately responsible for any death caused by his own vehicle or any vehicle he is put in charge of. Which, parenthetically, tragically, means his widow and his family are not entitled to the customary death benefit for survivors of employees of the executive branch who are accidentally killed in the line of duty. Because I was personally involved, I referred this matter directly to the Department of Justice upon my return to Washington, to ensure that the taxpayer wasn’t inappropriately burdened. Again, I refuse to blame the driver, whose swift death was punishment enough, and perhaps merciful.

I don’t see how I could possibly be blamed for anything that happened with the car. Not only was I unconscious at the time of the accident, I was incapacitated while in the act of securing a weapon, which is the first rule of firearm safety. You may as well charge a soldier with negligence for falling on a grenade. I did what I did for the most selfless of reasons and don’t feel I should be condemned for that, and I think most legal scholars would agree if they know what’s good for them. Even though I think I may be entitled to compensation for the inconvenience all of this has caused me I plan to waive that benefit out of respect for the fallen.

Indeed, Justice Scalia, who was also a member of the hunting party that afternoon, and was within eyeshot of the entire incident, concurs with everything I am telling you. He was kind enough to write out a judicial finding for me on the spot. Fortunately he was out of harm’s way when the Crown Imperial careened out of control, wiping out the drinks cart and killing my driver and Mister Paul instantly, as well as three of the dogs, perfectly-trained purebred English Spaniels that were a gift of the Duke of Rutland and much cherished by my grandchildren; they will be missed.

I understand that two of the hookers were also injured, as was Archbishop Copernicus of Houston, who was sharing a sandwich with one of the hookers, a muscular woman, if I recall, by the name of Dolores. Scalia had chivalrously draped his hunting jacket across the naked white shoulders, perfect, pouting breasts and milky white arms of another one of the hookers, to protect her from the sharp northwesterly breeze, and was chatting with her to keep her from becoming hysterical. He happened to look up just as the vehicle took out the negro driver and Mister Paul, and watched, horror-struck, as it barreled into the Archbishop and the other hooker. The hooker, with whom the Archbishop had become quite friendly during the weekend, was thrown up over the hood of the car, spreadeagled, cracking the windshield. The Archbishop was not as lucky. He was knocked down and fell beneath the vehicle. Fortunately, having drunk several Bloody Marys at lunch and an undetermined number of shots of Wild Turkey during the shoot, he was sufficiently relaxed to avoid serious injury, breaking only his pelvis and one fibula. He also received some bumps and bruises.

The ambulances arrived just then. By which time I was once again fully alert and in command.

In situations like these the first priority is to secure the lives of officials vital to the nation’s security. As the man in charge, the highest in the chain of command, I take complete responsibility for the decisions that followed. My first decision was to overrule my own physicians who insisted I accompany them to the hospital. No, I said, these other people are more grievously injured than I. This is about Harry, who was shot with 200 or maybe 300 pellets of bird-shot, who I refuse to blame. It isn’t about me, I said. Despite the fact that I had wrenched my back severely while collapsing across the front seat of the car while reaching for the handgun, which was a cherished present from the Sheik of Dubai. (A staunch friend of America, who was also in the hunting party but not present because of a hamstring pull suffered the night before in his bedroom.) Not to have retrieved the weapon, and wiped my fingerprints from it, would have been a diplomatic lapse on my part. I was in some pain, I agreed with the medical personnel on this point, but nothing another dose of the Bombay wouldn’t cure. I’m just an old cowboy. I’m accustomed to pain, and accustomed to self-medication. Pretend I’m not here, I said.

So I sent the motorcade of ambulances on their way without me. I gave explicit instructions for the hookers to be taken, with all convenient speed, to a separate hospital in Matamoros where they would not be exposed to unnecessary embarrassment over their lack of clothing. (To suggest, as the liberal press probably would, if they ever learned of this, that somehow the hospital in Mexico is substandard is blatantly racist and xenophobic but not surprising. It simply reveals the degraded mindset of my enemies.)

Even in the midst of all this commotion my senses were sharp enough to notice and take pleasure in one of our lovely Texas sunsets. It was pink––a hot, vivid pink–– but suffused with an almost flesh-like roseate glow around the edges where the soft, rounded shapes of the clouds seemed in the act of being torn and penetrated by the upthrust poles of BellSouth. Birds flew in acrobatic loops, landing upon the telephone wires. I have a distinct memory of them singing a particular happy song cherished from my boyhood, about a little girl in a little Spanish town and her beloved donkey who has died of a disfiguring disease. A remarkable thing, the acrobatic singing birds especially, but I promise you it all really happened just as I describe. If I had had any ammunition remaining we might have enjoyed the songbirds for supper.

Everything was suddenly quiet and peaceful. My adjutant, Todd, had recovered “the football,” the official suitcase that, by law, accompanies me everywhere I go. It had fallen underneath the Crown Imperial. Scalia, showing typical presence of mind, poured out a restorative round of Wild Turkey, and Todd circulated among the dwindling party using “the football” as a tray. As the light faded, the Justice and I herded our companions into the Crown Imperial. Donna or Debra sat in the front seat with me. Scalia’s bit of crumpet in the backseat with him; Todd all by himself, as he was on duty. I drove. The day was marred by no further incidents, unless you count the eight hundred dollars I lost to Scalia at bridge, but everybody knows Scalia cheats.

My question is this, and I realize it is a difficult ethical conundrum, but please try. I had a bridge hand consisting of five hearts, sufficient to shoot the moon, and I knew for a fact that four hearts had been discarded, nevertheless Scalia managed to win three trumps and clean me out. Donna or Debra was absolutely worthless as a partner, which I consider suspicious and unfair because I know that she and Scalia’s tart were in it together. So should I pay him what I owe him¬¬––am I under any ethical obligation to pay? Or should I make him sue me? I don’t think he would, and I don’t think either of the hookers would testify on his behalf.

Very Truly Yours,

Dick from Texas

Judith Miller: Secret Agent

In the waning days of the first Gulf War a chic, slender woman “of a certain age”, dressed attractively in desert khaki, was taken by Army Rangers to an undisclosed quadrant in the Saudi desert. (This area does not appear on maps.) Here she was stripped, anaesthetized, sterilized, shaved and stunned with a secret ninja hold to the neck, whereupon a microchip bearing the phone numbers of several very important persons, whose names cannot be divulged, were inserted beneath her right clavicle exactly where she had worn a small scar from a painful hickey received in junior high, after which the eldest son of the sitting president, wearing a mask, marked her in a secret place using a red hot coat hanger. In this time honored fashion was Judith Miller inducted into the exclusive, top secret ranks of Special Agents of a very secret Presidential order which we are not at liberty to name.

This of course is a top secret post, with secret decoder ring and everything.

We are told she has a special uniform, with cape and mask (perhaps it is a cowl, like Batgirl's), which she keeps in a secret closet in her apartment in a leafy D.C. neighborhood. It is so perfectly tailored that she can wear it under her clothes with out unsightly bunching.

Did we explain that she lives in an exclusive neighborhood? She does. People who are close to the President live in very exclusive neighborhoods for their protection.

(We are not at liberty to disclose that neighborhood or we might blow her cover, endangering the careers and livelihoods of other secret agents of the President. One of them is called Mr. A.)

We should probably call it her lair. Because that's what it is. Ms. Miller has impeccable taste so the decor is probably to die for, although we haven't seen it; practically no one has. The Defense Secretary wrote a poem about it. He is a frequent late night visitor. Agent Miller is afraid of parking ramps.

She is a special friend of people in the highest circles of power, but only the most powerful and tip top secret persons visit her in her lair, and only when there is some super special Presidential game afoot.

When they have special messages they wish to impart to the public via Agent Judy these top minions of the President and the Vice contact Judy Miller by secret telephone or by projecting a symbol known only to her into the nighttime sky using a powerful searchlight. Then she knows that a capsule containing a coded script might be passed to her under the table at the next exclusive dinner party she attends.

She will read the secret Presidential message under the table and then swallow it whole.

You have to have a special top-secret pair of glasses to see the secret symbol projected on the clouds. Judith Miller is also an honorary Army Ranger. The secret eyewear is like those night goggles they wear, only less bulky, to complement her petite sculpted features.

We have heard that Judith Miller, or as we like to call her, Commander X, enjoys the use of a top secret White House credit card which gives her instant clearance beyond velvet ropes and into first class on airplanes, even Air Force One, as well as entitling her to complementary chocolates hidden under the seat cushions in odd-numbered D.C. and N.Y. taxicabs, although she usually prefers a limousine. Only she and a few other people know about the chocolates, which she is not at liberty to share. The limousine drivers know her by name, but have no idea what top-secret missions she fulfills.

She and the Vice President and Mr. A have a secret handshake.

Commander X has a Swiss bank account, the secret code to which involves the private names she has given to her pets, which we are not at liberty to disclose or it might compromise the safety of her pets. Innocent animal lives must never be put in danger in the pursuit of liberty and justice.

Commander X also has fully vested options in KBR and other companies, which she is instructed to exercise in the event of a nuclear attack.

Commander X has switchblades in the toes of her shoes, just like Frau Klebb in James Bond. Miller had to have the shoes specially fitted because her feet are attractively petite.

Her eyelashes are rigged with razor wire. Her elbows were surgically implanted with concussion grenades prior to her being embedded with the Special Forces in Iraq.

She knows how to garrot an opponent of the President using her string of matched pearls, which are specially strung on high-test titanium used by the astronauts in outer space.

She has eyes in the back of her head.

In January, Matthew Cooper and Judith Miller were pitted against each other in a contest of martial arts in a top secret handball court deep under the White House. Agency heads and their dates were invited. The combatants were given choice of weapons. Cooper chose ninja stars. Miller eschewed all weapons, save her cobalt eyes and her vermillion lips and her elbows with the concussion grenades. Miller prevailed with two pins and an escape. Cooper has worn a hangdog look ever since.

Agent Miller, Commander X, has a specially designed micro-sized i-book surgically implanted in her lap. Evenings when she dines alone at Sans Souci, she can be seen typing her articles into it underneath the table. These behaviors only make her seem more mysterious to the ordinary people around her. She derives a secret pleasure from this.

Sadly, but not surprisingly, special agents of the government have little time for a private life. "I am a bit of a lone wolf," Ms. Miller said recently, on deep background, to a colleague who refuses to be named. It's been said Ms. Miller and Kiefer Sutherland (of FoxTV's "24") are not dating, but remain friends. Mr. Sutherland describes Ms. Miller's techniques as superior to those of Jennifer Garner, in a classified sense. Reports at the highest level have stated that Garner's hair style in the new season has been modeled after that of Judith Miller in an effort to shore up freedom around the world.

In a private conversation about Judith Miller, Britt Hume of Fox News said "access is the ultimate aphrodisiac." Hume and Miller are seldom seen together in public.

Hurt Feelings

"Frankly, I was offended by it," Vice President Cheney said on Larry King Live. "For Amnesty International to suggest that somehow the United States is a violator of human rights, I frankly just don't take them seriously."

Mr. Cheney, who is famous for wearing his big heart on his Vice Presidential sleeve, wasn’t lying when he said his feelings were hurt. Wouldn’t you be hurt if someone said that you had something to do with bad stuff happening when you had absolutely nothing to do with the bad stuff, and even if you did it wasn’t your fault, and you probably didn’t even know about it, and, even if you did know about it, what were you supposed to do because you were about a thousand miles away the whole time?

Lots of very important people all over Washington are feeling pretty bad on Mr. Cheney’s behalf for what these people, most of them foreigners, said happened to them, which wasn’t even true and you can’t prove it, and besides everybody does stuff like this, and anyway none of it can be traced back to Mr. Cheney because he’s that kind of manager. Most of these foreigners who told Amnesty International that they had been mistreated and even tortured by Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq and Guantanamo are people who hate America, apparently just because of a few bumps and bruises and being posed for dirty pictures and for being held naked in uncomfortable positions for three years without charges.

"Occasionally there are allegations of mistreatment," Cheney said. "But if you trace those back, in nearly every case, it turns out to come from somebody who had been inside and released to their home country and now are peddling lies about how they were treated."

They were let go and then they complained. How typical is that? Did they complain right away? No. Did they say something when they were being flown at 50,000 feet over water in a cargo jet with easy opening doors by military personnel dressed identically to their former torturers? No. And now, all this time later, we’re supposed to believe them. “Guantanamo isn’t the Helmsley Palace, my Muslim friend,” said a senior White House official who refused to be identified.

And why were they let go? Because we figured out after a long long time of careful, polite interrogation with the gloves off that they were actually probably innocent. But because they were Muslims all this time, we had to be extra extra sure they weren’t just lying about being innocent. We couldn’t just let them go right away. These people are really crafty, especially the ones who are innocent.

And how are we supposed to know for sure they really are innocent? Heck, almost all of the people we jailed since 9/11 have turned out to be completely totally innocent, but how were we supposed to know that? We’d look pretty stupid if we just let them go, especially if we’d paid a big whomping reward to the people who turned them in. They’d just be laughing at us if we let them all go without getting rough. They’d think we were sissies.

If you let innocent people go without roughing them up a little, and waterboarding them so they almost drown, and letting dogs bite their genitals, and then getting them wanked up in front of women G.I.s, and making them pretend to have sex with each other, and taking dirty pictures of them which you say you plan to use to humiliate them in front of their families and friends, the terrorists win. You’d think, after all that stuff happened to them before we let them go because they were innocent that they’d be so delighted to be free that they’d say thank you. But no, they go out and blab about what happened to them during their three years being held without charge, in solitary confinement with no clothes and the lights off. So if it was dark what difference does it make if they didn’t let them have pyjamas? What a bunch of crybabies.

So wouldn’t your feelings be hurt if you were Dick Cheney? What a mean, selfish, hurtful thing for these foreigners, most of whom look exactly alike, which is exactly like terrorists, to say to a man with a heart condition. These people should be ashamed. They are the ones who should be embarrassed, not us, and certainly not Dick Cheney. Where does it say in the Koran that it’s O.K. to hurt the feelings of a man who’s over sixty years old and has already had several heart attacks and has no proven ties to the enormous frauds taking place in Iraq apart from being on their payroll?


“It’s absurd. It’s an absurd allegation. The United States is a country that promotes freedom around the world,” President Bush said of the report, which compared Guantanamo to a Soviet-era gulag. He said the Amnesty allegations were based on interviews with detainees, who hated America and were trained to lie, reported MSNBC.

Trained to lie… These people were trained to lie. The president himself said it. If anyone should know about someone being trained to lie, he should. How, exactly, are we supposed to believe people who were trained to lie? Did we let them go back to their own countries because they lied to us when they admitted being terrorists to make us stop torturing them? Think very carefully because this might be a trick question: was it the torture that trained them to lie about being terrorists, or were they lying when they said all along that they were nothing but innocent cabdrivers with rivals who wanted to get rid of them so they could steal their business and marry their sisters? Should we ask our brave allies who turned them in?

“We promote freedom around the world.” The President said those exact words. It makes you flush with pride. I could give you lots of examples of places where good old American freedom is happening. For instance in Uzbekistan, where we outsource some of our more creative interrogation techniques, people are allowed to cheer openly in the streets in favor of the beloved leader. Every day at a specified hour, Uzbekis applaud the leader when he appears on their televisions, without being told or prompted with electrodes. This is the same beloved leader who is now even more deeply revered because he has switched from boiling detainees in oil all at once, to boiling them one anatomical part at a time in plain water, which is less expensive and better for the environment. Uzbekistan is one staunch ally that isn’t squandering U.S. taxpayer dollars. When they shoot protesters they make the family pay for the bullets. Don’t get me started on how democracy is on the march in Egypt.

But this is far from the main point, which is how terribly hurtful and mean it is for people to say America violates human rights. What a terrible thing to say about anyone, whether they have a comfortable outside income from quasi-military multinational corporations or not. Not only does it hurt the feelings of the brave people in Military Intelligence and in the Pentagon who are actually to blame, but it hurts the feelings of the Vice President of the United States who thinks the Geneva Conventions are quaint. A senior administration official has said on background that Mr. Cheney has cried, real hard, several times about these things Amnesty International says America did to people the Vice President has never even met, which he had nothing to do with, and even if he did you can’t prove it.

According to a senior White House official who agreed to comment without attribution, the Vice President is considering measures to take, internationally, in concert with our democratic allies, to prevent this sort of hurtful, irresponsible talk by human rights groups who want the terrorists to win. Some of the measures under consideration are waterboarding, forced sex with animals and creative uses of electricity.