As some of you know, I recently had to take out a restraining order against the president, because he was stalking me, and because of that, I've mostly tuned out of his press conferences because of the psychic trauma I experience watching my tormentor on stage, secretly laughing inside at the discomfort he's created for me. Yesterday, I caught him in my room sniffing my underwear, which wouldn't have been that bad, except that I was still in them at the time. Why would the president be stalking me, you ask? Well, clearly for the same reason that other celebrities are stalked. He wants to live my life, he has some kind of romantic fixation on me. hell, I don't know. Why does this president do anything? Still, today I happened to catch the early feed from the press room, before the major media outlets picked up the feed to go live with. I think maybe there was some editing and some tape delay in the version that many of you saw.
[Press Conference: December 19, 2005. White House Briefing Room and Temporary Torture Facility. On hand, the president, the president's immediate staff, the "Coffee Enema" presidential specialist, 4 dozen of the most incredibly gullible human beings on the face of the planet, i.e. Washington journalists.]
[enter from stage left, Richard Plantagenat, ne-er-do-well, backstabbing, kingdom for a horse, late middle-ages English pretender-for-the-throne mo'fo', as well as Henry, his brother from another mother, and the hero of this piece. He is a hero because of his gallant actions in France and during the little known crusade known to history as the Microsoft Resident Software Push of 1380. And, well, also because he killed Richard, and therefore got to write the history. I'm not sure if his real name was Henry, or if the year was really 1380, but this is Shakespeare, which means all historical heroes are named Henry, and all action takes place roughly in the year 1380.]
[Action moves to center-stage where a young usurping prince is explaining himself to his loyal subjects]
"And-and-and, so what I'm sayin'isits hard work."
Q: "But Mr. President, when you say it's going to be hard work, how are the American people supposed to find you credible, considering that you've never in your life done anything remotely resembling hard work? I mean, you got through college with a gentleman's C, you bailed on your air force comrades in Alabama, you've run four companies into the ground and been saved each time by nefarious Saudi oil men...how is this hard work, and how can you make such a claim with no experience?'
A: "Well, Mark...Is that your name, Mark? It is? By the way, I'm being frantically signalled by the dark-clothed gentleman on my right....I need to give you a message...[he bends over to have something whispered in his ear]...o.k. I'm being told that, at the end of the press conference, could everyone please exit the room through the emergency exit down here at the foot of the stage...everyone except Mark. Mark, I'm being told to ask you to please exit through the left-hand door at the TOP of the stage. Yes, no, I'm sorry for the inconvenience everybody. I'm being told that there is going to be....no, no, strike that. That there HAS BEEN an unfortunate accident directly outside the normal exits in which a member of the press was mistaken for a terrorist and was accidentally killed, three times, by my security apparatus. I like that word....apparatus....It's four-syllables. Heh, heh. I bet some of you folks didn't know that I knew any four-syllable words! Heh, heh. Heh, heh, heh. What's that? Jill? What was that comment? No, seriously, I missed it. What did you ask? You said you didn't know I could count to four? Heh-heh-heh. Heh-heh-heh. Hey Jill. I've got two syllables for you. F--k you. Yeah, and you can exit out the goddamned top of the room as well. Yeah, left door, same as Mark. Yeah, where that fella in the dark sunglasses and the beret is waving to you with his machine-gun. Yeah...any more questions?"