The Thinking Man's President

I just don't understand all these criticisms of Mr. George. It hurts my feelings. Especially when my mother accuses Mr. George of not being curious enough to think through important issues. She was upset by Mr. George's own admission that when his advisors are briefing him, he isn't so much interested in what they're saying as how they're saying it. Mr. George says he tries to get a read on the advisor, as if they're in a poker game. My mother, bless her heart, pointed out that it does no good to get a read on whether your advisor is bluffing if he genuinely believes his pair of deuces will win the hand against five other players. She's right. But what my mother doesn't know is that Mr. George does think about issues.

Take this discussion I had with Mr. George while he was practicing his golf swing near the begonias:

"Listen here, Lenny," said Mr. George. "I wanna try something out on you. Marriage is defined as being a natural act of commitment between a man and woman. It just is."

"I agree, Mr. George."

"No, no! Come on, Lenny!" said Mr. George, waving his 5-iron. "I need you to argue against me. I need you to play the devil's adversity to help me practice up for these debates. So let's try again— marriage is a sacred act to be imposed upon a man and a woman, for better or poorer, richer and in health. It's always been that way, and it should always be that way."

"Hm, oh, okay. I guess I could say that homosexuals don't choose to be that way — they can't help themselves — and letting homosexuals get married will help them feel like they're part of our society. There, how's that?"

"You're wrong, Lenny!" Mr. George started swinging his club into the tulips, sending petals into the wind. "Homosexuals are evil, and homosexual lovers are evil, and maybe you're a homosexual, Lenny. Did you stop to think about that?"

"Come on, Mr. George, I'm just playing devil's advocate like you asked. I agree with you."

"No, Lenny, stay in characterization. Keep arguing."

"Oh right. Let's see. Some homosexuals can't get tax breaks because of their sexual orientation."

"I'll see to it that everyone gets a tax break. And here's something else—" Mr. George stood up straight and fixed his stare. "There's two kinds of homosexuals. The first kind are born that way — weak, like the pasty wimps we used to snap towels at in gym class. The second kind of homosexual got that way through preversion and cowardice. When heterosexual waters get a little too choppy, these fellows jump ship and swim to Fairy Island. They just do. So when they don't have luck with girls, so they get into all kinds of perversions. As legislators, our job is to make that swim to Fairy Island as tough as possible, so as to keep the number of sodomists as low as possible. That way, America can be America again, loving freedom and righteousness and democracy."

I tried to come up with an argument, but I literally couldn't. I'm looking forward to these debates.