This relatively new political satire site has a weekly essay contest on a given theme.
And so happens I won one of the recent competitions.
Since
the contest rules limit the essays to 400 words, I had to cut my entry
severely.
See below for the uncut and somewhat revised version.
If
you just came from Demockeracy, check out the back issues,
especially
the ones on The Big Jewel, where I will have pieces in March and April.
The theme for the Demockeracy essay contest was:
How George W. Bush plans to spend his last day in office
Here is the full version of my entry:
January 22, 2009:
A
video posted on Youtube by George W. Bush sheds light on the dramatic
events of his last day in office...
(audio transcript:)
My fellow Americans:
During my
eight years as chief executive I have been very concerned -- Laura
would say obsessed -- with my legacy. At first I was hoping to be
remembered as the president who fought to save our most precious
natural resources: rich people.
Then I got a chance to be the
president who vanquished terrorism, which looked promising, so I
decided to shoot for the president who brought democracy to Iraq.
Well, let's just say that I'm still waiting on FTD.
I
tried different angles: the president who protected us against the
apocalyptic scourge of recession... oil dependency... flag
burning... gay marriage...
Nothing worked. Then I had this other
idea, but it turned out peace in the Middle East takes more than a year
(could somebody tell me these things?) and before I knew it I only had
one day left. Today. The day I will be remembered as:
The President Who Revealed the Truth and Went Out in a Blaze of Glory.
So first, the truth about a couple of things:
We
haven't caught Osama Bin Laden because he's working for us. We've been
paying him eight million a year as one of our
"external-threat-providing image enhancement consultants". He sent us a
nice Christmas card in 2001 saying, "You're welcome. That should give
you another term and Dick a few juicy deals in Afghanistan. And by the
way, you really ought to dump that goldbricker Saddam off the payroll
-- what's he done for you since '91? Don't tell him I said that."
So anyway, all those alerts? Orange, yellow, red?
Jenna, a pitcher of margaritas and a dartboard.
And
speaking of eight million, that's what Scooter Libby got to take the
fall for the Valerie Plame thing. OF COURSE it was Karl all along. Get
real.
Now, about Katrina: Response was poor because Jeb had
dropped seventy grand on the Saints and he wanted the Superdome
trashed. Hey, if you can't do something nice for your own brother, what
kind of a man are you?
Oh, and OF COURSE there aren't any damn aliens in Area 51. Get a life.
So
now you know. And now I'm going to put my pilot training to good use by
commandeering Air Force One, flying across the Atlantic and slamming
that baby into the Eiffel Tower. That'll teach those ungrateful snail
suckers...
(recording ends)
As the world now knows, Bush
failed yet again to achieve his stated goal. Despite having sought the
advice of experienced pilots and consulted aviation charts, he took off
in entirely the wrong direction and ended up crashing the plane into
the Eiffel Tower replica at the Paris Las Vegas resort and casino in
Nevada.
The structure held. Since the site was closed for
renovation, the president was the only casualty. His death left Vice
President Richard Cheney in charge of the government for the remaining
hours until the inauguration of then-president-elect Ralph Nader.
The
next day Treasury Department auditors discovered that $670 billion in
federal funds, an amount equivalent to the combined annual budgets of
all national health and education programs, had been transferred to a
bank in Wajiristan, and Vice President Cheney had disappeared, along
with all of his possessions.
The only thing he left behind was a razor.
An investigation is ongoing.
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Quorum of One is intended for adult readers
