Early this month your W Team went down to the Mall for the annual Cherry Blossom Festival.
 
We love the Mall. Stretching from the Lincoln Memorial to the Capitol, it is a sweeping architectural celebration of the American spirit.
 
In fact we love Washington, the centerpiece of our national identity; the city that more than any other embodies the ideals that have inspired the birth of a great nation, and have for so long served as a beacon to all who revere freedom and justice, and who aspire to the pinnacle of human dignity.
 
Now of course it's just another town with good movies and great restaurants, but we still like it!
 
And, of course there's the Cherry Blossom Festival! In the days preceding the event, our international city has been playing host to weather patterns from around the world. On the day of our outing it was not yet clear whether it was to be Jamaica or Siberia, but meteorological indecision did not daunt the plucky little blossoms, and when we got there the Mall was a pink fairyland.
 
We'd been snapping pictures like mad things for more than an hour when someone noticed that Mrs. Feeny had gotten away from us, thus raising the alarming possibility that she had wandered over to the White House--somethin the Secret Service has requested we not let happen again.
 
Moreover, we remembered that despite the court order, we had neglected to inform the Park Police of Feeny's presence on the Mall. The Park Service has taken an abiding interest in Mrs. Feeny's whereabouts, dating back to last spring when Park officers, for reasons that doubtless seemed sufficient to them at the time, were attempting to stuff the old prune into a squad car. In the resulting melee shots were fired--not even one of which came anywhere near Feeny--causing several officers to sustain rather nasty flesh wounds.
 
But in the event, we needn't have worried, for after a short search we discovered her taking photographs at the Tidal Basin, infamous site of the tryst between the late Congressman Wilbur Mills and exotic dancer Fanne, "The Argentine Firecracker," Fox
 
"They're for my scrapbook," she explained sweetly.
 
Having walked away scatheless from another Feeny debacle, we celebrated at a nice restaurant a few blocks from the White House. Shortly after entering, our attention was drawn to a smiling gentleman seated near the far window, waving to us with effervescent enthusiasm. To our amazement it was Florian Bindlestiff, a man not famous for his sunny outlook. Florian was widely considered to be the sort who would appear before St. Peter and complain that the Pearly Gates needed a new coat of paint. His present demeanor was, to say the least, intriguing, and we were easily persuaded to join him at his table.
 
Upon inquiry it developed that the State Department nabob's better humors owed to a recent and felicitous change in employment. "Just in time, too," he said, "I don't think I could have taken another week at the Office of Corrections," Then noting our evident confusion he explained that the term referred not to penal justice but to a perceived need to stay on message.
 
It seemed the administration was becoming increasingly concerned that various of its pronouncements might be taken to mean what they actually said, thus leading listeners to draw hasty conclusions not necessarily in the administration's best interests. Bindlestiff's job therefore had been to convince them that they had not heard what they had heard.
 
"For example," he said, "a certain UN ambassador recently asked us if we intended to support a particular resolution. What he thought we answered was "yes," when what we actually said was, "yes." Misunderstandings like that can cause a lot of problems."
 
Apparently it was a nuanced "yes."
 
Even worse, every now and then the President would say something seemingly unconfined by the bounds of ordinary human discourse. "Swear to God," Bindlestiff crossed his heart. "One day the guy says, 'One of the things we've got to make sure that we do is anything,' you wouldn't believe how hard that is to explain--not to non English-speakers, of course, they just assume their translators have been drinking and fire them. But English-speakers get upset precisely because they recognize all of the words."
 
But surely, we said, that kind of challenge fosters a certain amount of stimulation.
 
"Well, yeah," he said, "At first, but as the messages got weirder we had to come up with increasingly fancier explanations, and after a while the explanations started to violate the principles of cause and effect, and eventually even the laws of physics. Pretty soon people started walking away when they saw us approaching.
 
It was a lonely kind of job," he said miserably, sighing and stirring his coffee.
 
"So after a while, it seemed easier just to deny everything out of hand. Pretty soon we were issuing wholesale denials of everything anybody asked us about--sometimes even before they asked. Finally we'd just pretend that anything that was embarrassing or a problem of any sort just didn't exist."
 
"How'd you get that past Colin Powell?" We asked.
 
""Who?" He asked blankly.
 
"Anyway," he continued, "That kind of thing gets into your blood. Pretty soon true and false didn't seem as different as they used to, and after a while I started to lose my sense of place in the universe. Furthermore it was starting to have an effect on my family too--got to where Estelle and the kids wouldn't believe a word I said. Worse, Estelle got it into her head that I was cheating on her with another woman. I couldn't go anywhere that she didn't get suspicious.
 
"I was nearly at the end of my rope when I got an idea. One night I told Estelle that for several years I'd been seeing someone named "Gladys," and that I had no intention of breaking it off."
 
"Did she get violent?"
 
"That was the beauty of it," he said, "She relaxed completely, figured if it was me saying it then it couldn't be true."
 
"A brilliant piece of reverse psychology!" We said, "That must have taken quite a bit of pressure off you."
 
"Oh, yes!" he said brightly, "And off Gladys, too!"
 
After a moment we said, "So the new job's an improvement?"
 
"You bet! I'm now the Director of the Office of Relativism. It's my own creation," he said proudly, "I got the idea from when I was getting all mixed up about the truth. I realized that people pay closer attention to what you're saying when they don't know what the hell's happening around them. And it doesn't take much, you only have to shift their psychological landscape a little before they're completely lost. It made my reputation because the White House loves that kind of thing," he said, beaming.
 
"How do you do that?" We asked.
 
"Oh," he said, "It's pretty easy. In fact you've seen some of our work already: "Freedom Fries?" "Freedom Toast?" Not only destroys the cultural context, but slams the French while you're at it."
 
"Brilliant!" We shouted.
 
"What's more," he said excitedly, "now that everybody hates us, we've got lots more material to work with! Pretty soon you'll be ordering American Heritage Waffles--with lots of whipped cream--and North American Bacon and Star-Spangled coffee (no Turkish allowed). And for dinner you'll have LibertySchnitzel followed by Bulgarian Chocolate Cake!"
 
He went on to explain that not everything had to be changed; "Spanish Peanuts" and "Italian Sausage," would remain untouched, whereas "Sour-Kraut" would require only slight adjustment.

"After that we'll start changing place names," he enthused, Moscow, Idaho will become "Eagle City," Chinatowns everywhere will become known as "Liberty Towns," and French Lick, Indiana...well that one will probably have to be changed altogether.
 
"Then we start working on basic concepts--that takes quick action: You've already seen how in Iraq we had to shift from "regime change" to "weapons of mass destruction" and then to "war of liberation" when the WMDs didn't pan out." He sat back with a satisfied look. "A couple of months of that sort of thing and no one will have even the slightest idea why we invaded in the first place."
 
"Actually we don't have the slightest idea now," we said, "But never mind! It's still a brilliant plan! You're only a few steps away from 'war is peace''!" we exulted.
 
"Wait a minute," he said, pulling a pen from his pocket, "Let me get that down..."
 
"Sounds as though we're going to be seeing quite a different America," we chortled.
 
Bindlestiff's face fell slightly. "I believe you mean 'FreedomLand,' he said a bit crisply.