I want to break an exclusive story today, a story that never happened. I managed to get my hot little hands on the Bush Tapes, the ones that recorded what I think probably, maybe, well, sort of, could have happened in the Oval Office on the subject of invading Iraq.
Here’s the scene: Sitting at his desk is George II, otherwise known as George the Younger, or just plain old 43. To his right (no pun intended) is Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. To 43’s left (still no pun intended) is Secretary of State Colin Powell. Sitting to the far right of Rummy (OK, the puns are intentional) is a TV set featuring the face of Vice President Dick Cheney. It’s a live feed from the Veep’s Undisclosed Location (Fillmore East? Fillmore West? Naaah!). And on the phone from Somewhere In The Gulf is Gen. Tommy Franks, busily working his Etch-A-Sketch to figure out how to erase Saddam from the board without making too many messy lines. Meanwhile, the tape rolls …
Bush: “So let me get this straight. We send Blix to the stix for a weapons fix? That round clown couldn’t find his head in his bed!”
Rummy: “No, no, 43, you don’t get it, you don’t see. That Blix is slow and Blix is blind gives us the gift that gives us time.”
Cheney: “Time to look good, time to look fair, and time to deploy our strategic air.”
Franks: “Time to give the Times bad gas, time for our strike force to amass.”
Powell: “But the world expects and wants to see if the inspectors can find with certainty, the bugs and bombs we say are there, ’cause if they don’t, they’ll scream, ‘Not fair!’ Then our Arab pals will likely walk and the Europeans will start to balk …”
Cheney: ” … And so your conservative base will mutter, ‘That 43’s just empty talk.'”
Bush: “So being that we’re just oh-so-fair, how long, dear Dick, to deploy our strategic air? And Gen. Franks, if we take your course, how long to amass our own strike force?”
Franks: “March is drop dead, the Iraqi summer, so to start past February is really a bummer. I say we go in late January, with luck and six weeks, Baghdad we will carry.”
Powell: “We can’t just be using the United Nations! It’ll hobble world peace for the next generation!”
Rumsfeld: “Colin, all is fair in love and war, look, would you have been happier serving Al Gore?”
Powell: “Well, if truth be known, I voted for the bloke – hey, put that chair down, can’t you take a joke?”
Bush: “So the inspections go on, and we build up force, and when we’re ready, Hans Blix we divorce, and declare there and then that no matter his finds, that we knew Saddam’s was lyin’ the very whole time.”
Cheney: “You see, 43, that it doesn’t much matter, the inspections regime is just so much chatter. It’s bread for the Arabs and circus for Europe, and sugar for the dreamers and for the peaceniks, pure syrup. Because whether Blix finds a little or the most, we’ve already decided that Saddam is just toast, so whether he fights or whether he runs, by March of ’04, you can stick a fork in him, ’cause he’s done! So let’s use Blix as it suits our needs, and let him putz in the desert and issue his pleas, because everyday that he does his minuet, we get to position another 12 jets.”
Rumsfeld: “You see, 43, that Blix thinks we’re the dupe, but he’s misread the mindset of our little group, because there’s only one dupe that’s really in a fix, and he looks like McGoo and his name is Hans Blix. He thinks he’s buying some peace with time, while meanwhile we’re landing Delta Force Nine. So let him go, all smiles, that Swede, give him a medal, he’s serving our needs.”
Bush: “Hey, I get it now, and I’ve changed my mind, the U.N. is my kind of place, any time!”
Unfortunately, the Bush Tape ends here. But I’ll keep trying to get more footage. And hey, if Bush does lose in ’04, maybe New Jersey will make him the state’s poet laureate!
