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As the Tin Woodsman clanks up to the TV cameras fifty seven times a day to compare this election to checking out in the supermarket line, "If the scanner misses one of the items, the clerk doesn't give it to you for free!"...and the Cowardly Lion cowers on his Texas ranch hoping that the teachers from CNN won't notice him standing behind all those Great Men that Daddy sent to help him out and ask him a question...the Wicked Witches of the East and West square off in the courtrooms to alternately confuse us and bore us to tears. Dorothy, however, wishes she were back in Kansas.
Speaking of which, there once was a woman who discovered a genie in a bottle. However, this genie turned out to be a lawyer's genie, who while willing to grant three wishes, cautioned the lady that anything she wished for would be granted IN DOUBLE to all the lawyers of the world. So when the woman first wished for a million dollars, she saw that every lawyer in the world immediately became TWO million dollars richer. And when she asked for a large, beautiful mansion on the beach, she found herself surrounded by other beautiful mansions twice as large, all populated with lawyers. So, for her third wish, she asked to be able to donate one of her kidneys to humankind...
The land of OZ aside, the three ring circus of legislative, executive and judicial branches was in full swing. In the center ring, the candidates themselves waged the Battle of the Flags, finally decided beyond recount or challenge when Cheney appeared in front of two clusters of SEVEN American flags each, arranged like two bunches of red, white and blue roses. Clinton, chuckling at the chaos wrought by the shenanigans of his less-than-stellar sidekick, said "Be patient." and flew off into the sunset to crowds of adoring VietNamese.
Willy listened carefully to every word said before the U.S. Supreme court and, based on nothing more profound than his acute sense of personal proclivities (read: bullshit filter), decided that the Justices had more or less all made up their minds before the hearing...that their questions were mainly pro-forma...and that Bush would win on narrow Article 2...of the Constitution...grounds, by a margin of at least 6-3...maybe as large as 8-1...with only Justice Ginsberg unable to actually read and understand the plain language of the Constitution in the same way as her peers. She appeared to have bought the Gore line hook, line and sinker, although it was Willy's impression that Laurence Tribe...the esteemed liar that Gore had hired to plead his case...didn't HIMSELF believe it!
Kathleen Tumultry of Time Magazine commented on one of the talk shows that interviewing AlGore...AlGore seems to have adopted the hilarious BobDole habit of joining his first to his last name like Siamese twins...that interviewing AlGore was like interviewing a video recorder...that, no matter the questions, the answers pour forth like a prerecorded messages from the sponsor.
Then we had the O.J. chase remake, with a Ryder truck full of ballots taking the role of the Bronco...helicopters and chase vans in full pursuit...and Gore nervously fingering a forty five at his political temple playing the role of O.J.. Meanwhile, Jesse Jackson, inadequately playing the role of Johnny Cochran scheming to show the chads did not fit and that Bush was trying to steal the election by claiming to be ahead in the vote count...complained loudly to every TV camera that would listen that those 15,000 protesters he and the NAACP had herded into demonstrations could not IN ANY WAY be compared to the hundred or so Bush thugs that tantrummed at the counting station. "Why, those folks were there to IN-TIM-I-DATE!" he growled, while his folks were just there to have a prayer vigil. By the way, we liked the original movie better...and so did O.J., doncha know?
Uh, huh. Curiouser and curiouser...
The pundits, trying desperately to conceal their glee at the marvelous spectacle being provided to them by the only indigenous criminal class in America...lawyers and politicians...kept reassuring a rapidly-falling-asleep public that this is a "great civics lesson." Indeed? What might that lesson be? That America is trying to decide a twenty-first century election with eighteenth century rules? That the current Vice President is an insufferable jerk? That Bush is a deer caught in the headlights of history? That the Constitution, designed for and written by land-owning White men has ABSOLUTELY NO PROVISION for suffrage for ANYBODY, but leaves all that messy stuff...like voting and picking the President...up to the states?
The newest Big Lie of the Gore side is that they only "want to count all the ballots that have never been counted" ignoring the fact that he is only talking about those remaining ballots that might...MIGHT...give him enough to claim victory, but which have been counted so often they are getting sticky. Meanwhile the hugely Pooblioob Florida legislature and legislators moved to exercise its clear and unchallenged Constitutional right to pick the electors in any way they see fit, should the liars and the ho's not be able to come to any conclusion. "Oh, they mustn't do THAT!" cautioned Warren Christopher, the handsome and charismatic former Secretary of Something whose voice is so respected all over the Five County Mosquito Control District. "That would be putting itself between the electors and AlGore's becoming President." he further cautioned.
"Al Who?" asked the people.
All hail President Shrub!
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