A Very Nixon Christmas:
(William Safire and Maureen Dowd indulged fantasy scenarios in their most recent columns. Why not join them?)
Safire is in the kitchen, late, late at night, having put to bed his latest editorial, one of his last for the Times. In this one, Safire, using Philip Roth's latest novel as a jumping off point, envisioned the scenario of a fantasy George W. Bush having opinions of his own, able to stand up to the neocons, and refusing to go to war in Iraq. This single act, of course, leads to Saddam Hussein's ascent to unparalleled power in the Middle East, with a complicit UN behind him. Oh, ho, ho, we dodged that bullet, Safire thinks, searching for the last of the Hannukah brisket in the back of the fridge. When he closes the fridge door, he notices that the room is still cold. He turns to the counter and jumps, for a moment, as he sees the ghost of his old boss, Richard Nixon. "How ya doin', ya short-cocked kike?" Nixon asks.

"Hi, Dick," Safire says. He's old. He's seen many, many ghosts in his time. And Nixon's been a regular visitor of late.

"Goddamn, that was a fine, fine fucking editorial you wrote today," Nixon says, proud that his former speechwriter has succeeded where so many from his administration failed.

Safire says, "Actually, it's technically a column. An editorial is generally done by an editor. I'm a columnist."

Nixon rolls his eyes, "Look, Bill, if you correct my fuckin' language one more cocksuckin' time, I'll feed your balls to Satan's bichon frise."

"Satan has a bichon frise? I'd've thought pit bulls or something."

"Everyone in Hell has a bichon frise. Little fuckers shit and shed, it's all they goddamn do."

"Brisket?" Safire offers.

"Got any bacon?" Nixon cracks himself up. Safire shakes his head. He's used to the charm of Nixon's Jew-hating humor. He knows that Nixon's heart is good, despite the judgment of eternity. Nixon continues, "Holy fuckin' crap, what an amazing column today. That kind of disinformation I couldn't buy in my time. Least I couldn't get away with it. Fuckin' Cronkite, fuckin' Murrow, fuckin' Huntley, fuckin' Brinkley, fuckin' Woodward--"

"What are you talking about?" Safire interrupts, slicing the brisket and eating it with his fingers. "I don't contaminate the columns with disinformation."

"Ah, you Hebe bastard, you were always thinkin' you were pure. It's why we tapped your phone. C'mon, the lines about Iraq 'harboring' terrorists? Sure, the fuckin' Kurds were always linked up with al-Qaeda, but, remember, America loved 'em because Saddam gave 'em the gas. So, sure, sure, terrorists were within the borders of Iraq, but nowhere near Saddam. They were cavortin' under our protection. And ending with Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz as heroes? Fuckin' genius. Oh, and that line about Condoleeza Rice, that sweet brown pussy, nice and thin, like Pat after the cancer operations, sayin' that 'Saddam seeks awful weapons'? Holy shit, that's some fine revisionism. You know Rice said that there were real and actual weapons, not a desire to seek or some such bullshit. It'd be like sayin' that Joe McCarthy was worried about Communism as an ideology, not actual Communists."

Safire winces. "Really, 'Communism' in the form you're referring to is not an 'ideology,' but, rather, an economic and political system that--"

"Oh, that's it, Bill," Nixon growls. "Every goddamn time I visit you, you Jew bastard, you gotta trot out the Strunk and White. That's it. I'm gonna fuck you now." And the ghost of Richard Nixon slams William Safire down on Safire's kitchen counter, Safire wide-eyed, brisket slice dangling out of his mouth, as Nixon goes to town, his cold cock thrusting away as Safire, at first shocked, eases into it, remembering the good old days back in the Oval Office, with an uncomfortable Kissinger looking on whenever Nixon went into one of his sodomizing rages, telling Henry that this is how he wanted to enter Cambodia before tearing down Pat Buchanan's pants. Or Safire's (Safire was usually Laos).

His stomach bouncing on the counter as Nixon grunts behind him, Safire thinks about his recent work in the Times, and this current administration, filled with men who rose to prominence on the coattails of the Nixonian will to power that he, Safire, helped usher in. And as Nixon grabs his ghost balls and screams in orgasm, Safire thinks, The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Gettin' a Lugaring:
Contemplate the statement by Richard Lugar (remember - some consider him one of the rational, "moderate" Republicans) on yesterday's Meet the Press regarding whether or not Donald Rumsfeld should be fired: "He should be held accountable, and he should stay in office." By that fucked-up logic, no one should ever be fired for anything as long as they're "held accountable." Molesting priests should lead the flock. A postal worker who shoots his fellow employees should still deliver the mail. A goddamn Wendy's employee who burns down the restaurant by accident because she thought she knew how to work the fuckin' fryer should be simply reassigned to the drink machine at the next Wendy's. See? As long as there's some bandage of "accountability," there's nothin' to worry about. Didn't we used to call losing one's job "accountability"?

Ahh, but that's just the corporate culture taking over fully in DC. See, as long as no one's caught doing anything illegal (and the key word there is "caught") then you just keep promoting the incompetent. To fire makes the CEO or area supervisor or whoever seem weak. Like, if Dan in accounting fucked up the projected sales figures but you, as VP of sales, signed off on Dan's fuck-up, you can't reveal Dan's error because it implicates you. But to promote? Why, then you're rewarding the incompetent for something good, right? 'Cause, like, why would you promote someone who is an utter boob? And thus Dan gets the corner office and a fun new title. So, really, and, c'mon, unless Rumsfeld is caught balls deep in the face of a limbless Iraqi child in a Baghdad hospital while Marines block the doctors and nurses from pulling Rumsfeld away before he chokes the child to death, we're going to hear over and over from the White House about how "spectacular" a job Rumsfeld is doing.

Of course, the White House rewarding of incompetence that comes to mind most readily is the whole Soviet-style awarding of the Medal of Freedom to George Tenet, Paul Bremer, and Tommy Franks, the See No, Hear No, and Speak No Evil of the Iraq War. Oh, sure, lots of Left Blogsylvania and even some "mainstream" media members were pissed about the obvious bullshit nature of the use of "the nation's highest civilian award" in such a blatant assertion of the goodness and rightness of the Bush policies in Iraq. But, c'mon, Bush has previously "honored" Irving Kristol the same year as Nelson fuckin' Mandela. He's given it to Charlton Heston, Arnold Palmer, and neocon Norman Podhoretz. Sure, sure, the Presidential Medal of Freedom is given to popes and peacemakers and great doctors and artists, but Bush has made sure it's just another circle jerk in the name of shoring up the base.