mr. grumpyhead's

Mr. Clarke and Mr. President, Part Four. Is it Part Four? I'm not sure, anymore.

I've been away to the Big Bruised Apple, and had to compete with my two female companions on the trip for private, quiet internet use... which ought to more than sufficiently explain why I haven't posted in so long a time.

However, my keen wits are always at the ready, and my saga of the almost Platonic/Socratic Clarke/Bush dialogue that has had so many of you on the very edge of suspense, and wonder, continues! Thank God it was largely prewritten! Here we go! (And do pay close attention, because I really explain it all, for you, the entire true mystery of what's really going on, in these next two postings. Whadda character. Oh, and I might mention for you hordes of newcomers that this is a fictional, and hilarious, pre-9/11/'01 conversation between our two heroes. And that you can ponder the previous amazing earlier parts of this masterwork on this very website. You lucky, lucky bastards!).

GWB: (exasperated) Yaw yaw yaw, yeah. I know: Asama ben Talibanny. They've all told me you had something in yer craw, Father. Yer gonna turn into some kinda bin-Blahdi-blah woo-ry-wart kinda guy. I'll just act like this last part of the meeting never even took place (puts hands over ears) La la lal-ly, la la la la la laaaaaaa! (singing)"As I-IIIIII walked dowwwwn the streets of La-ree-do..!"

Richard Clarke: Personally, I'm starting to really wonder why you're keeping me around here, Sir. I can hardly get a word in.

GWB: I told ya, Dicky bin Used- ta- be- with-Slicky! We gotta have someone to pin this on! If things go bad. We need to insinuate bad advice from saboteurs within the pre-vi-ous administration.

RC: Pin what, Sir?

GWB: Also, we need to have someone around, like I said, who takes the bother to actually know what to do just in case of emergency. Ya can't expect some other person I bring in to be as good as you folks. Who would I call? Kenneth Starr?? A-ha ha ha. Tee hee....Okay...(looks around) I tell ya... 'tween you and me... we gotta see to Iraq. See? If we try to do both what yer a-squawking about, and what we were placed here to do, it could be a big ol' Viet-Nammy kinda mess-like. Too much di-vers-if-i-ca-tion-a-tion of resources, too. But we gotta do Iraq... Ya know why?

RC: Why, Sir?

GWB: Because... Clinton didn't invade Iraq!! Allll-waaays gotta do jes' 'xactly what The Clinton didn' do!! HA HA HA HA.. Naw, just jokin'. Want to really know why?

RC: Hm. Is it because some day very soon electronic technology in automobiles and elsewhere will eventually reduce the "advanced" nation's consumption of oil so very much that it will impoverish the poor in the oil producing nations in the Middle East that much more than they presently already are, so that now even the very rich are starting to panic about it, but you don't want to announce that out loud and actually explain why you want to go into Iraq, because if that explanation came from official Washington announcements it would start this whole fear process that much earlier, and so you're taking the usual total hawk position from the very start as a slow solution to that problem? In other words, you're fearful of a revolution, there, in general, and that it'll be exploited by the fundamentalists the way that poverty and ignorance among white people is exploited here with marketing tactics by Corporate Evangelical Christianity?

GWB: Did I say all that?

RC: No. You didn't. Well, I guess this explains why we're putting all these gasoline consuming tanklike vehicles on the road, here, and encouraging people to actually buy the things, and during what would obviously seem to the average person like the eve of a potential energy crisis. Whether we have lots of oil, or not, people here won't really care when we don't need it, anymore.

GWB: Well, don'tcha worry. Someone will need it. Mebbe China, since the Russians are prob-ly about to spring a whopper crude deluge in Siberia that'll make the folks in "Giant" look like them ape-y creatures in that old spacey-type picture! You know, before they start a-touchin' the o-blong slabby thang that looks like a big ol' SUV turn up on it's bumper? Get it? Primitive-like, is my point.

But they, them Chin-ese and a-Russ-i-an folk, don' really get along, those two. So, while the Western lands (and Japan) are driving around in hybrid-y au-tos, the more backwardy-type places will still be a-running on only The Crude products. Who knows better how to really make that pay for the Middle East than we do? And to sell tires, too. Then, by the time the oil really runs out, we can give 'em our hand-me-down techo-nology, like we always do. Everybody wins. You know. Kinda like that "Schindler's Listing" show. And some of us REALLY win!!! Moolah moolah moolah! And how!

Clarke: But allow me to inquire: if it's the Islamic militant fundamentalists we fear so much, which is understandable, why are you fomenting the Christian Right in the U.S. to continue with their nonsense? Why are you empowering them?

GWB: Me empowering them? Heh heh... you got that a liddle bit a-reversed, dontcha, Boyee?

Where we a-gonna get the soldiers, Son? We can't count on the patriotic and the broke to unsuspectingly join the Guard, can we? A month or two at Ft. Bragg turning into two years very, very much elsewhere?... But if ya survive, and if yer smart.. and well-connected... yer in on the ground floor of financial opportunity, Iraqi-wise. See? Even if ya got nothing left of yer arms be-low yer elbows, mebbe! Who we gonna call? Just the Cho-loes? Or the Af-ree-can-A-mer-eee-cans..? There's only so many Marines we can get out of those people- they're still a minority, ya know, even though we keep a-tellin' them on the tee-vee that they've got jest plenty ta spare, all the time.

(the fifth part of this inspiring conversation tomorrow)

R.A.C. & G.W.B!! K-I-S-S-I-N-G!! Well, no, not exactly, but I think it looks funny

July, 2001
Washington, D.C.

Richard A. Clarke: And, so, there you have it, Sir.

GWB: Wow. That's really something. Glad I sat down with you. That was amazin'. What is-sit called, again? Cy-bo-terror?

R. Clarke: It's cyber-terrorism. I think it'll be a big problem, as I've explained.

GWB: Yeah, ya did. (to an assistant) Yah gettin' all this?

RC: While we're at it, Sir, I've cut this particular briefing just a little short-

GWB: Say, so ya did! I 'preciate that, Clarke. The Condster told me that you'd want a full two hours. Means I can get to that prayer luncheon a little early! Thanks. Those people never say as much, but they get a little snippy-like if yer half a second late. They're in a hurry. Ya know. Rapture's comin'.

RC: Actually, Sir, I stopped total focus on the cyber-terrorism issue a little early because I had something else I wanted to speak with you about that concerns a larger, but related, topic-

GWB: Say, you're a pretty bright feller. I thought you were in charge of all the anti-terrorism stuff 'round here. Whatcha doing briefing me on just this 'puter business?

RC: To be frank, Sir, it's taken me half a year to even get a meeting with you about this subject.

GWB: Whatsa matter? Being a little loose with the chores 'round here since we took the reigns? Aww, that's okay. Ya must've been exhausted after the transition... all that guardin' against the "Millenium-ne-um threat. And fer all I know, our party was trying to stick even you with a subpeany all throughout them 90s. (suddenly very concerned) We didn't, did we?

RC: Uh, no, sir. And, actually, I happen to be a registered Republican.

GWB: Damn, thas a good thing! Everyone has assured me that without someone like you 'round here on the ol' lookout we "new" folks'd all be royally screwed-up-in-the-hindquarters-area in the event of some ol' attack! I mean we'd maybe be kilt! Heh heh.

RC: Uh.. heh... heh.

GWB: Naw, I'm sure yer likely ta keep us safe.

RC: I hope so, SIr.

GWB: Okay, "Terror Man".. what's on yer mind? (to assistant) Kin we be sorta private-like, myself and Senor Ricardo, there? (assistant leaves) Heh heh, he's a good say-ker-o-ta-teery but I can't call 'im that! (smirking awkwardly) Have ta call him mah 'sas-sistunt! Heh heh heh. ...yah know?

RC: Sir, I've really wanted to speak with you about Afghanistan for months, now, and particularly about the Taliban and al Quada.

GWB: Afghanis... hey! Oh-ho.. I get it! I remember. So yer the one that's been a-pestering Ricey-baby about them "cells" and sech!

RC: I've simply been persistently requesting some sort of audience, or at least a principals meeting-

GWB: Principals meeting! Ooooo! Sounds heavy to go and meet wit' the PRINCIPLES, don' it, now! Oooooooo!!
Well, I'm as high on that par-tic-u-lar tree yer tryin' ta shake as anyone else 'round here- ceptin' fer (pointing upwards) Him!

RC: Howard Taft, Sir?

GWB: Naw, not the wall por-trait, Mister! I mean The Man Upstairs! Jesus H. Christ!

RC: Um, yes, Sir. However, seriously-

GWB: Am serious, Pilgrim. (coughs) Iraq.

RC: Sorry, Sir? ... Iraq?

GWB: Nothin', nothin'.

(Clarke says nothing)

GWB: Now, about this Afghanistanny business.... Maybe I've never been there.... in fact, maybe I haven't really been anywhere 'ceptin' Meh-hee-coh before I became yer U.S. President, but...

RC: Yes, which is.. remarkable. Be that as it may, you did just say "Iraq", Sir.

GWB: Um.... I did? When?

RC: Just then. Before you mentioned Afghanistan.

GWB: Oh. That's nuthin'. Just a daily reminder to myself.

RC: Reminder? May I ask of what, Sir?

GWB: .... It's a rehab thing.

(to be continued)

"The FBI starring Efram Zimbalist, Jr! In Color!"

Hey, for those of you who were busy last night and didn't get to see Paramount's Homeland Security on NBC, here are some memorable highlights from the Easter evening telecast:

(Tom Skerritt is the academic who is called by the White House to head the Department of Homeland Security just under Secretary Ridge. No, we never get to meet Ridge in person, which would have been fun. Skerritt's character has a second banana who is a loveable, somewhat twitchy yet urbane guy whose name is.. Saul. And don't tell me you didn't see that coming)

Saul: (looking at Skerritt's character intently) When I said I didn't want Homeland Security to become America's Gestapo (he casts his eyes away, looking downward)... I really meant it.

(Hey, those are comforting words, Saul, because earlier in the broadcast the dumbass Goys across America were all intently wondering about that sincerity question regarding you, of course....)

(A blonde, blue eyed, tough guy CIA agent gets a call to go to Oakland's Lake Merritt in California where the FBI is involved in a heavy stakeout of a large terrorist cell. CIA guy whose name and portrayer I forget because I'm not intelligent enough to remember knocks on the door of the ratty hole-in-the-wall where the domestic Feds are set up)

CIA guy: Open up. I'm the Good Guys. (or some variation of that as he shows his ID through the door's peephole. A young FBI agent not busy at the stakeout gear table lets him in)
FBI guy: Hey, so you're a spook, huh? (chuckles incredulously) Sorry, man. It's just that I've never actually met one of you guys, before.
CIA guy: That's okay- we'll be working a lot closer together from now on.
FBI guy: Amen to that.

(Scott Glenn is an old-timer at the Agency who is going to retire on 9/11 when he comes out of retirement due to the attacks and finds himself on horseback a few scenes later, in Afghanistan, aiding the Northern Alliance in some of the program's more expensive scenes due to all the comp generated effects in the explosion and battle depictions. At one point they go into an underground facility in a hill that has been blasted by U.S. airborne fighters, and Glenn comments wearily about all the body parts lying around that they find in the cave, very probably a major al Quada stronghold. As he goes further into the cave with a flashlight he comes across what is clearly an abandoned intraveneous feeding bag on a stand... then a dialysis machine... then something that looks like an unusual cane that, I assume, is meant to be one of bin Laden's well-known possessions. It's clear that the Primo Catch has once again eluded them... and, of course, us, as well)

Scott Glenn's CIA character: (as he holds up the cane between himself in close-up and the camera) Son of a bitch!

Uh.. yeah! Son of a bitch, indeed! Gee, that'd be my reaction, too, in the same situation!
The two hour program, which had no warnings about violence during the breaks (maybe there was one at the very beginning, but I'm not sure) was unusually violent for primetime network television, especially without those parental warnings, including at least one unflinching shot of a point blank shooting into the head (there were several shootings like that) and a wide eyed closeup of a sniper victim with a blood puddle seeping onto the pavement from the back of his skull... and I must say that these seemed to be lifted/borrowed/stolen from the more shocking shots of Schindler's List, except that this wasn't a black and white offering, of course. The drama looked to me to be the premiere episode of a proposed series, although I don't know if NBC has picked it up. Think the FCC might prevent it?

Easter Sandwich

"Truth is, my fellow Americans," he said, smirking waggishly at the camera, "is that this year you're all being served a giant, jumbo helping of our recipe for Easter Sandwich - and you're all just gonna hafta take a big ol' bite!"