A personal note: this week's offering was to have been the backstory of the W Team and Mrs. Feeny. But events seem to have overtaken that plan and we now find ourselves faced with the inevitable result of a diplomatic strategy designed by Wile E. Coyote.
 
Last night, in the calm and stoic manner typical of Joan of Arc, or Dr. Hannibal Lechter, the President demanded that the leader of the Iraqi people go into self-imposed exile in order to spare his nation further suffering. This seemed such a wonderful idea that I immediately inquired of the possibility of making it a two-for-oner, but it appears not.
 
The outcome seems clear: we will murder them and they will murder us, but rationality will be the first to fall.
 
I thought that for a while, perhaps a long while, nothing funny would happen on the earth--not an specially nourishing environment for satire, children or other fragile things. Then too, as a satirist, that is to say one whose mouth operates at a higher frequency than one's brain, I must guard against the tendency to use a stiletto where a heart would be more appropriate.
 
For these reasons I awoke this morning planning to put "W" on hiatus until things were better or clearer--whichever came first. But my wife said that I would be leaving the trenches at the wrong time, and suggested I rethink my decision.
 
Throughout my life I have clung to the fervent but improbable hope that I would someday make a meaningful contribution in this life. But that plan requires that I remain alive, and I do not see how that purpose would be served by ignoring one of my wife's "suggestions."
 
So, given her thoughts on the matter, and the inexact wording of my major medical plan, I will be continuing these amphigories for the foreseeable future. In exactly what form they will continue is a different matter. I expect that their format and theme will vary over succeeding weeks, but that they--and eventually all of us--will return to something less abnormal.
 
And speaking of the President...
 
*****
 
AN ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
 
My fellow citizens, more than a decade ago my father, for reasons that still provoke some mighty lively discussions around the Bush holiday table, missed the opportunity to pursue the evil dictator, Saddam Hussein, and gut him like a trout. Instead we must content ourselves with merely demanding that he rid himself of the weapons of mass destruction which we imagine him to possess. Mr. Hussein says that he has done so but he unfortunately failed to get a receipt.
 
We've asked him for some evidence of his alleged compliance, but, unlike the many honorable heads of state who wouldn't hesitate to prove a negative, Senor Hussein has seen fit to stick to his story, saying that even dynamite will not budge him from the truth.
 
Well, we'll see.
 
The evidence of his noncompliance may seem murky to the inexperienced eye, but, to quote a famous comic strip, "as any fool can plainly see, I see," and his obfuscation cannot carry the day with those of us experienced in villainy.
 
In making our case against Iraq we have inundated the United Nations Security Council and its member states with literally thousands of pages of faked evidence, unproved allegations, self-serving anecdotes, outright falsehoods and specious analyses--all to little or no avail.
 
And in that time the growth of Saddam's monstrous nuclear arsenal has continued apace--an arsenal all the more deadly for its being totally invisible. My critics deny this. They say that we have not one shred of proof of such plans or capabilities. I answer them with one word: "World Trade Center." As your Vice President said this weekend, imagine the destruction the al Quaeda could have wrought on September 11th if they'd had nuclear bombs or biological weapons of some kind.

Well, I'll go him one better: what if the al Quaeda (which, as you may know, is Arabic for "Hooray for Saddam!") had made an alliance with the Martian Conquerors of the Alternate Universe? What would my critics say then, as they toiled as slaves in the Uranium mines of Phobos? Are they--are any of us--prepared to sweat out our days on the hot red sands of Mars' nearest moon? I don't think so, and I don't intend to let that happen.
 
Two and a half years ago you nearly elected me your President. At that time I promised to protect you from tyrants and madmen. And because I am a little fuzzy on the exact meaning of "irony," I have since surrounded myself with advisors expert in confronting today's problems with the proven worth of good, solid 19th century thinking.
 
But the time for thinking is over. The time to act is now--not yesterday, not tomorrow, not today, but now. For too long have we merely drifted toward tragedy, now we shall set a course for it.
 
This is not a question of authority, this is a question of will--which is good, because we don't have any authority. But we've got plenty of will, and an almost reflexive determination to use it, and we are not easily deterred. For example, at this very moment there is a fly on my nose, but I take no notice of the fly for I am much man. America too is much man, and we intend to kick the sand of our wrath into the face of the 98-pound weakling that is Iraq.
 
We won't let any tin-pot dictator--foreign tin-pot dictator--push us around. And we will not be deterred simply because one or two effete nations back out on us--time to put away the Brie and cheese, boys, chicken's on the menu tonight!
 
Accordingly, I now make the following demand of the nefarious Hussein regime: come Wednesday we're expecting you and your boys to be on the high noon stage out of Baghdad. Otherwise we and our allies (the mighty war powers of Spain and Bulgaria) will have no choice but to turn you and your country into something you could slide under the door.
 
In addition we expect that you will become Irish and learn to do the hokey-pokey.
 
Make no mistake, Mr. Saddam, we mean business. You have bitten the tiger and now must reap the whirlwind. Count on it, the United States is not in the habit of going back on its promises-- that is, unless we've got an awfully good reason--but since reason plays no part in this your time is up.
 
To the army I say this: resist illegal orders. Remember that war criminals will be prosecuted and imprisoned or worse. Do not follow the orders of corrupt officials. Do not sacrifice your lives for the dreams of madmen. Throw down your arms now.
 
--That's the IRAQI army I was talking to.
 
To the world I say this: do not fear us. We have not become addicted to power. We can stop anytime we want to.
 
And to the American Public I say: do not be swayed by the arguments of faint--hearted critics who maintain that our actions are only another phase in a long-term plan for global dominance *. Who are you going to believe, the rest of the world...or me?
 
 
 
 
*Dick Cheney's Song of America - Harper's Magazine, 2002