The Ship of State, under the command of George The Decider is circling a black hole. It cropped up unexpected at an outpost near the eastern edge of Western Civilization and he steered us into it. . .well, we ALL helped--and now we're going round and round, real fast.
So fast the Republicans among us are becoming speechless at the sight of it all. And quite a sight it is: bursts of sixteenth-century era violence spatter the deck with blood as their leaders frame the universe in terms of their own personal beliefs. Republican politos coldcocked by bad blogs, political science writers getting dizzy from the weirdness, leaving 2-bit scifi novelists like yers truly to fill in the gap, writing dark blue prose about deadly serious topics.
AND, the once-friendly enablers from the professional media, having lost all faith in their editor(s) just can't bring themselves to type a coherent word in The Decider's defense. Their fingers just refuse to lie anymore. Good for the karma and all, but bad for the paycheck. "Isn't there an underwear-challenged celeb we can write about instead? Lindsey Lohan is still crazy and annoying, isn't she? Didn't Paris Hilton jump off another ship or something?"
But it doesn't matter. Everybody KNOWS we are all gonna go past that event horizon into total chaos. Circling deeper right down to that bad ole ninth circle itself, the Singularity where Tom Delay, Jack Abramoff, the future Dick Cheney and all those other politothugs reside--frozen in ice or something and getting their wallets chewed on by the dogs of the IRS.
Ugly.
Becoming nervous, The Decider tries to rally his troops, tries to get some of them to walk the plank to appease the whirlpool, perhaps make it slow down. "Rummy! C'mere! Where's Bolton? And that ratbastard Chalabi guy? Where's that little weasel Feith? We should be able to throw HIM overboard!"
Nope. Most of them have already bailed. The Decider is alone, save for the ghostly sirens of Henry Kissinger and John McCain, floating above him like annoying wraiths, urging him deeper into the drain. "Twenty thousand more, no, a MILLION more. . .and we can open a Walmart in Falluja! Cheap labor from Palestine and Jordan! Tax breaks. . ."
Fever Dreams, of course. Because the Ship is still headed for the hard singularity at the center---the place where all time stops and everything implodes into chaos, followed by an eerie, buzzing nothingness---a place where the Republican party is no more than an obscure pair of words in a trivia game from 2009.
Serious bad.
And just when it couldn't get any worse, any more embarrassing, The Decider's own father appears, Hamlet-like. Yes, it's Poppy his-own-self, surfacing from the early nineties forheavensake--and he even brought along his sidekicks Scowcroft, Baker and a coupla other guys. Even some chick: supposedly once one of the Supremes! Wow. Time travel AND Motown!
The Decider shrugs it off. What's done is done and what's past is past!
The Decider decides his own damn fate!
At the last minute he lets go of the ships wheel (it didn't work anyway) grabs a lanyard and throws it into the chaos--hoping for a miracle. Something or somebody that will get him outta this fix. . .someone who knows how to handle this place. Someone who can take over the job and let the Decider fly off to his sunny farm just north of Paraguay--and away from all those Shakespeare metaphors!
The rope goes taut and The Decider pulls someone on board. Can it be? Yes! The Fates have answered! It's none other than. . .The Fixer. The Boss of Bosses: The one and only. . .MISTER Saddam Hussein! (Orchestra plays satisfying major chord with halleluja choir.)
Saved!
The Decider graciously welcomes Saddam on board and offers a deal. All charges are dropped in return for a favor. . .all he's gotta do is crush the Shiites, Kurds, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Sunnis, Wahabis, Wasabis, Spammers, Phishers, Robots and other assorted riffraff, and just settle the place down again. We get this boat outta this black hole and we'll promise an unlimited line of credit, just like in the eighties! Rehab those palaces. Buy ya a new car. Get a decent haircut!
Whatever it takes to get this boat outta the drainpipe. Okay?
Oh. . .
REAL sorry about th' kids.