Editor's note: Michael Ackley's columns may include satire and parody based on current events, and thus mix fact with fiction. He assumes informed readers will be able to tell which is which.
Your Reporter: Senator, we listened with interest to your analysis of President Bush's speech at the United States Naval Academy and wonder if you'd care to expand on your remarks.
The Senator: Of course I would. I am happy to share the benefit of my perspicacity with my – that is your – audience. I'm sure my analysis will show my fellow Americans just how right I was for the country instead of our current, uh, occupant of the White House.
Are we on the air now? No? Give me a minute to warm up a bit.
(The senator closes his eyes and chants in a monotone: I me my, I me my, I me myyyyyyyy!)
OK, all set.
Your Reporter: Very well, we're on the air in five, four, three ... Senator, you said, in so many words, that the president's speech was a presentation of accomplishments in Iraq, but lacked specifics about a plan for disengagement. What – specifically – would you do differently?
The Senator: I believe I made very plain what I would do, which would be to prepare the Iraqis to take care of themselves, and when they're ready, to withdraw our troops.
Your Reporter: But isn't that pretty much what the president said?
The Senator: There may appear to be similarities, but I would be more specific.
Your Reporter: Well, this is your chance to be more specific. What, specifically, would your plan be?
The Senator: By specifics, I mean my plan, but it would be unwise to reveal it in any great detail. After all, we don't want to put our brave fighting men and women at risk.
Your Reporter: Isn't that what Bush said?
The Senator: I don't think so. As a Vietnam veteran, I think he's still misleading the American people.
Your Reporter: We seem to be going in circles. But let's get to the question of morale. Are your criticisms of the Iraq conflict bad for the troops?
The Senator: My dissent is patriotic, and after due consideration, I decided my dissent would be important. Therefore, I'm now dissenting.
Your Reporter: But you weren't dissenting during the presidential debates of little more than a year ago. You seemed to be saying you'd do what Bush did but you'd do it better.
The Senator: That's still true. I would be doing it my way, which is a better way, but now I'm dissenting because after due consideration – as I said – I've come to believe I was misled.
Look, I waited two years after I mustered out of the service (Did I mention I served in Vietnam? Well, I did serve in Vietnam.) to join the anti-Vietnam War movement.
What I want to say is that now as much as during the Vietnam era I believe I support our fighting forces by dissenting in a way that let's them know I honor their sacrifice.
Your Reporter: But in your Vietnam protest days you testified that our fighting men were rapists and murderers.
The Senator: Hey, Mr. Smarty Pants Reporter, those remarks – if I ever said them – were taken out of context. And the fact is, the president misled us. We should have listened to our allies.
Your Reporter: Do you mean allies like Britain and Russia, whose intelligence confirmed our own spies' findings?
The Senator: I mean we should have listened to our allies like France. I always liked France, and I think the French like me. Did I mention that I speak French? The French fought in Vietnam, just as I did.
Your Reporter: Didn't French intelligence confirm U.S. intelligence, too? And is French society really what you want to idealize? Haven't the riots there altered your view at all?
The Senator: I've had just about enough of this. This is ambush journalism. Here I am, offering the American people the benefit of my wisdom, and you're picking nits. The fact is, I might have done the same thing Bush did about Saddam, but I would have done it better, and I would have done it smarter, and I would have developed a plan for winning the peace, and I would have shared it with the American people.
I'd have done it. I, I, I, I, I!
Why didn't the American people choose me? Me, me, me, me, me!
Your Reporter: But you can't be more specific about how you'd have done better?
The Senator: Wouldn't be prudent.
Oh. Did I mention I served in Vietnam?