A Political Play in One Act
Time: Morning in America, Take II, January 20, 2011
Place: A Day’s Inn just outside Washington, DC
Four prominent Progressive Bloggers occupy a room with the curtains drawn, the only light emanating from a TV showing “The Daily Rundown” starring Chuck Todd and Savannah Guthrie.
The lone female blogger from HAMSTERWHEEL.COM sits on the bed knitting. One of the three males, THE BRAZILIAN, studies himself in the mirror. Another, PLACEHOLDER, peels back the curtain to steal peaks at the street below. The third MOD MAX paces around the room smoking nervously.
THE BRAZILIAN: Will you stop smoking? I have an important rendezvous after this and I’m going to stink of cigarettes.
MOD MAX: Aren’t you nervous about what we’re about to do?
HAMSTERWHEEL.COM: Get a grip.
PLACEHOLDER: This is a No Smoking room anyway.
MOD MAX: Is it? Wouldn’t want to upset any apple carts then, would we?
HAMSTERWHEEL.COM: Look, you’re either with us or against us.
MOD MAX: Running a primary challenge against Obama is historically risky.
PLACEHOLDER: How so?
MODMAX: Look at your history. The antiwar movement primaried Johnson and ended up with Nixon, who extended the war into Laos and Cambodia, made racism a permanent part of our political process, and nearly shredded the Constitution.
PLACEHOLDER: But Nixon gave us the EPA. That’s progressive change we can believe in!
MOD MAX: Sigh. The Left primaried Carter and got Reagan. His revolution walled the shining city on the hill off to the poor and downtrodden, launched an illegal war in Nicaragua, opened up the era of Greed is Good and Republican Triumphalism.
THE BRAZILIAN: I want some of that triumphalism. Obama has lowered my self-regard.
MOD MAX: Reagan had eight years. Obama’s hardly had two years. Even Seinfeld didn’t get good until the third season.
PLACEHOLDER: Seinfeld. Perfect. A show about nothing and an administration about nothing.
MOD MAX: Don’t forget Nader. Nader gave us Bush. Could there a bigger warning sign about the dangerous path we’re on?
HAMSTERWHEEL.COM (throws her knitting across the room, rises from the bed, and starts stomping up and down): It wasn’t Nader’s fault. It was Lieberman’s. Lieberman! Lieberman!
MOD MAX: Speaking of Lieberman, how did that strategy work out?
HAMSTERWHEEL.COM: We beat the little scumbag.
PLACEHOLDER: We drove him out of the Democratic Party!
MOD MAX: But he’s still a US Senator.
THE BRAZILIAN: My impotent rage fills me with self-loathing.
MOD MAX: And paving the way for Sarah Palin will help?
THE BRAZILIAN: Yes. It will reduce it to rage. That I can live with.
MOD MAX: I don’t think I can live with myself. Excuse me. I have to go into the bathroom and retch over the prospect of President Palin.
(MOD MAX exits.)
HAMSTERWHEEL.COM: What do we do with this quisling, Trotskyite yellow dog?
PLACEHOLDER: What can we do? He’s the only one of us to parlay a progressive blog hobby into a legitimate, paying gig with the Washington Post. He’s our voice in the mainstream media.
THE BRAZILIAN: But he’s tainted. By his contact with the mainstream media.
HAMSTERWHEEL.COM: How can he not be? They drink from the same water fountain. Piss in the same urinals.
PLACEHOLDER: So what do we do?
(Sound of retching from bathroom)
THE BRAZILIAN: Shoot him.
PLACEHOLDER: Shoot him? We’re liberals. We don’t own guns.
HAMSTERWHEEL.COM: Gentlemen, to your iPhones. Dagger.app!
(As MOD MAX emerges from the bathroom, the other three jump him from behind and stab him repeatedly in the back)
HAMSTERWHEEL.COM: There, that’s done. Now to the business at hand. How sure are we of our chosen one?
PLACEHOLDER: We got the blood tests back. He’s 97% pure liberal.
THE BRAZILIAN: On the intangibles, he’s sincere, articulate, and highly principled.
PLACEHOLDER: Plus, he was a military hero.
HAMSTERWHEEL.COM: A military hero. Oh, my.
THE BRAZILIAN: And, get this...a widower.
HAMSTERWHEEL.COM: Like Fred McMurray in My Three Sons. Or Atticus Finch. America loves a widower. But will he resonate with the voters on the bread and butter issues?
PLACEHOLDER: He’s good on derivatives reform.
THE BRAZILIAN: And he’s solid on habeas corpus for Yemeni nationals and net neutrality.
HAMSTERWHEEL.COM: I can hear the heartland singing.
(Offstage: A horse whinnies)
(The four turn to the door)
PLACEHOLDER: That’s him!
(The door opens. A horn appears first. Then a unicorn’s head. And then a full-sized white unicorn steps into the room, mounted by...taa-daa...GEORGE MCGOVERN)