This is Chapter Seven of the one truly top notch political satire about the Obama administration, "The Adventures of Barry O and Tailgunner Joe". It's hilarious, isn't it? I worked really hard on it. As many of you know I have been on a continuous search for members of the Saturday Night Live writing staff. Last known sighting was at the 'W' hotel in New York. Or is it the 'Y' hotel? Heck, I don't know. I realize they need their rest and relaxation to rev up for another season of Republican bashing. I hear they're getting a lot of leftover material from Bill Maher and John Stewart. Colbert submitted some stuff but they thought it was too squirmy. No punchlines. Not SNL's cup of tea apparently.
Somebody please ask them to contact me. I can save them. It would be just awful if they missed the movement to oust the worst president in U.S. history while they were busy trying to retread tired old jokes about the War on Women or something.
C'mon guys. Van Jones? Debbie Wasserman What's-Her-Name? Jay Carney? Axelrod? Biden? These people are hilarious. Let's go write some comedy, shall we?
-- Austin Speed
Chapter Seven
BRIDGES AND ROADS,
ROADS AND BRIDGES
"The word 'politics' is derived from the word 'poly', meaning 'many', and the word 'ticks', meaning 'blood sucking parasites'.”
- Larry Hardiman
“Sssssnnn Rrrrrddddd,” the intercom crackled, “Nnnnnrrrr ppppppdddddd nnndd ssssss rrrrrgggggnn.”
Obama looked at Axelrod who seemed to be struggling with this one.
“Senator Reid is on the phone, Mr. President,” Axelrod said. “At least I think that’s what she said.”
“I’ll take it,” Obama said into the intercom. “Harry, how are you today?”
“Okay, so far, Mr. President, but we've got to talk about health care,” Reid said.
“Let's do that, Harry. I just want you to know you’re on a speaker phone with Bill Daley, David Axelrod, Vice President Biden, and Attorney General Eric Holder.”
“Hi, guys. It’s good having you all listen. Let me give you the short version so that when we meet we'll all be prepared to talk more productively.”
“Great, Harry. Let us hear what you’ve got.”
“Here's the basic idea, Mr. President,” Reid said. “As you know coal makes us sick. Oil makes us sick. All fossil fuels make us sick. We're getting sicker and sicker.”
“Got it. Go on,” Obama said.
“Well, Las Vegas is powered by hydroelectric power from Hoover Dam. People don't get sick there. Is everyone with me so far?”
“I think so, Harry.”
“So our proposal is that we move D. C. to Las Vegas and put in high speed rail transit from Vegas to L.A., New York, and Chicago.”
“We move D. C. to Las Vegas?” Obama asked.
“Yes sir, Mr. President. We've got clean power. The weather's better. You'll demonstrate your commitment to a clean environment. Heck, maybe we can actually double or triple our federal revenue by betting the budget money in the casinos.”
“Wow, Senator Reid,” Obama said, “that's a pretty interesting set of ideas. Can you help me out a bit and relate that back to health care again?”
“Well, Mr. President, moving D.C. to Vegas would mean fewer people in the Potomac area. Fewer colds. Fewer people getting sick because of coal and oil. Burning less fossil fuels, you know. It'll just be healthier.”
“Okay, Harry, I think I get it now. Well, thank you for sharing your ideas. I look forward to talking to you about this.”
“Thank you, Mr. President. Have a nice day.”
Obama disconnected the call. “Well, David, where were we? Does this Deep Tongue have anything else?”
“Just that it's the first phase of a three part campaign.”
“What are the other two phases?” Obama asked.
“We don't know that yet, Mr. President,” Axelrod said. “There is another issue that we should talk about, however.”
“What's that?”
“Sir, we need to talk about Dorothy, the beauty shop owner from Springfield.”
“Who's that?” Obama asked.
“She's been on Fox News, Breitbart’s website, and Drudge Report claiming the Stimulus Bill has failed to help small business.”
“What does she mean it’s failed?” Obama asked. “How could it have failed? What's she saying?”
Axelrod said, “Well, sir, She claims Vice President Biden's office could not tell her one thing that the Stimulus Bill is doing that helps small business. She's adamant and fairly convincing.”
“Joe, do you know anything about this?” Obama asked.
“Mr. President,” Biden said, “I don’t know how she figures it. The Stimulus Plan has to be helping her. We're fixing roads and bridges. She needs those things for people to get to her business. Bridges. Roads. Bridges. She needs ‘em, right? Roads?”
“Well…uh…Mr. Vice President,” Axelrod said, “she says the roads and bridges she has near her business are fine. They don't need fixing and they don't need new ones. On Fox News she said, ‘If that's the best you've got I'm going Republican’.”
Obama hit his intercom button and said, “Could you ask Mr. Carney to come to my office, please?”
“Yyxxxx sssss,” the intercom hissed.
Obama released the intercom button and said, “What do we do about this?”
“We should audit her, Mr. President,” Axelrod said. “There isn't a small business on the planet that hasn't cheated or made a mistake on their taxes. Let's do a Joe the Plumber on her.”
“Sssssrrrt Pppnnnnnt,” the intercom hissed, “Nnnrrr Ggggggsss izzzzz heeeee.”
Obama looked at Axelrod. “I think I’ve got this one. Carney is here, right?”
“Yes, sir,” Axelrod replied.
Obama hit the intercom button, “Send him in.”
“Zzzzzzz Rrrrrrrr,” the intercom popped.
Jay Carney walked into the room “Thank you for calling me down here, Mr. President. The press corps was hounding me about Iran and Fast and Furious again.”
“Jay, how are you doing?” Obama asked. “We'll send you back to the press corps soon, but right now we need to know something. Just what do you know about Dorothy, the beauty shop owner from Springfield?”
“Well, Mr. President,” Carney said, “She's popping off to right wing media about the Stimulus Bill not doing anything for small business.”
“Do you have any ideas on mitigating this?”
Carney thought for a second and said, “We could take her on. Frankly, I think this is small enough that we should sympathize and tell her we will see what we can do.”
“I tend to agree. Let’s not run the audit yet, David. Joe, is there any way we can reach out to her? Maybe we can turn this into a photo op.”
“We’ll try, Mr. President,” Biden said.
“What are we going to tell her?” Axelrod asked looking directly at Biden.
“Well, David,” Biden said, “I'd just remind her that even though she doesn't think much of what we're doing to bridges and roads, she needs those things to run her business. We should tell her about the great websites we have for the Stimulus package with all the pictures of bridges and roads, and recommend that she check out the website for the Small Business Administration. And in order to really help her, I'm sure we can help her union employees with some bailout money.”
“Mr. Vice President, she's got two employees. They're not unionized.”
“Well heck, David, we can help with that, too. We'll ask the AFL-CIO or the ACORN folks to head on over there and organize her people. She's in Illinois, right?”
“No, sir,” Axelrod said. “Springfield, Texas.”
The words ‘dumb struck’ hardly seemed adequate. Finally, Obama recovered long enough to ask, “How in the hell is any major media event like this coming out of Texas? They don’t have any media down there, do they? Who listens to people from Texas? Surely there’s some story we can push up to our friends at the Times and at CNN to drown this thing out.”
“I’m not so sure, sir,” Axelrod said. “It seems as though a large number of reporters that had been pulled out of Iran and Afghanistan were laid off, for the most part, due to budget cutting at mainstream news outlets. A lot of them decided they didn’t really want to live in Washington, New York, Chicago, or California. Many of them moved to Texas to become independent journalists…bloggers so to speak.”
“Bloggers,” Biden said. “I hate bloggers.”
“These bloggers seem to have gotten organized,” Axelrod said. “They write pretty good pieces, and they’ve begun to give more visibility to stories out of Texas. They’re getting a lot of play, and other news organizations are picking up their stories.”
“So these are the people who are reporting on this Dorothy woman?” Obama asked.
“Initially,” Axelrod said. “Fox picked the story up and so did Breitbart and Drudge. Eventually all the outlets carried something on it.”
“Drudge,” Biden said and started laughing. “Sounds like ‘sludge’ doesn’t it?” Biden kept laughing while everybody else stayed quiet. Biden eventually settled down.
“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” Obama said. “Bill, call Panetta and see if there are any other high profile terrorists we can knock off easily. Maybe we can release one from Guantanamo, track him as he leaves, and hit him right after he gets back to Pakistan. David, let’s act like we’re on the side of small business. Call this woman and ask her if she’d like to come to the White House and have a beer with me in the Rose Garden.”
“She doesn’t drink beer, Mr. President,” Axelrod said. “She’s made a big point of that in all of her interviews. Texas Bible thumper. I recommend tea, sir.”
“Can we make it coffee?”
“She doesn’t drink coffee either. Health kick. Green tea, sir. Green tea.”
“Blecchh. Okay, see if she’ll bite on that. Bill, see if you can find some leftover Stimulus money to help her to expand her business. David, let’s get some kind of story to crowd this out of the news. Whatever you’ve got. An oil spill, or a hurricane, or an earthquake, or something.”
Obama looks around the room at the group. “Everyone got it?”
“What do you want me to do?” Biden asked.
“You’re the Vice President, Joe. You need to stay above this,” Obama said.
“Right,” Biden said as if he actually understood.
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