George Bush Says Our Kids Are Hostages:
Let us say, and why not, that some crazed criminals, fuck, make 'em Islamic, if you want, are holding your children hostage, black market Kalashnikovs pointed at their heads. And you are given a choice as to who can save them. You can make one phone call to either George W. Bush or Jimmy Carter? Whose number would you punch up on the cell? Now think about this for a second before you answer: there are guns, locked and loaded, at the heads of your kids, cute little boy and cute little girl, kneeling on the floor of the living room, blindfolded, hands behind their heads. You gotta think what's gonna make this end well, not like some seizure of citizens in Russia or Chechnya, with the kids alive and, really, and, c'mon, once the kids are safe, who really gives a fuck what happens to the criminals? We shall return to this conundrum in a moment.

Yesterday, at his newest bizarro press conference of flailing poll damnation, President Bush more or less said that we're all hostages to terrorists, and aren't you goddamn happy that he's in charge. When NBC's David Gregory dared to ask if a President who's been proven wrong every time he exhales is still credible, Bush squawked, "They viciously attacked us before we were in Iraq, and they've been attacking ever since. They are a threat to your children, David, and whoever is in that Oval Office better understand it and take measures necessary to protect the American people." You get that? Terrorists are a threat to David Gregory's kids. So's poisoned food from China, but unless one can bomb the melamine out of it, it's not quite as glamorous a problem. (When asked about trade issues with China, Bush responded with the best "what-the-fuck" line of the morning: "One area where I've been disappointed is beef. They need to be eating U.S. beef. It's good for them. They'll like it." Somewhere in Wyoming, a steer fantasized about being stir-fried with bok choy and was pleased.)

But's it's not just the unlucky NBC correspondent's kids who are potential suicide bomber fodder. Asked why Osama bin Laden is still free, Bush responded, "I would hope our world hadn't become so cynical that they don't take the threats of al Qaeda seriously, because they're real. And it's a danger to the American people. It's a danger to your children, Jim." If you think about it, it's the kind of mobster rhetoric that says, "Shut the fuck up": "Yeah, be a real shame if anything should happen to your kids, Jim, you know what I'm sayin'?"

There you go. The President of the United States says that reporters' children are threatened by terrorism. They, like the rest of us, have those barrels leveled at our skulls, awaiting the word to blow our brains out, to burn our houses, to blow up our malls.

Let's return to the crisis mentioned above. Now, every hostage negotiator knows that, unless shit's out of control, with hostages being shot and chaos pouring down, you hold back. You talk. You see what you can do to get the kids out alive. If you go into that house with guns a-blazin' and your kids are dead. You might get the kidnappers, might even kill 'em all, but what's the use if you don't get the hostages back? If you think that it doesn't matter as long as we get those evil fuckers, well, the White House awaits your ringtone.

So who's the call to, George W. Bush or Jimmy Carter? Tamp down your bloodlust for a moment, your desire to gut and string up the criminals. It's your kids at stake now, according to the President. Do you want the man who's gonna bring the bazooka or the megaphone?