Free Work

I am drunk. I know, I know. As an employee of the Untied States of Amercia, only the greatest planet that God ever bestowed his fist upojn, I should set a better example. I really should. I tried to. In fact, I drank the wine out of a paper sack in case anyone may have reconized me and wondered what a Godfearing man is doing in a park without his shoes, but theres times when I feel so down about not having insurance to pay for my eardrum and loosing my job while I was incarnicated in jail, and bills just piling up, and if you think I'm going to steal from my mother's social security check, you've got another think coming!! I am poor, my crotch is soggy, and I have been escorted from two parks. Thank GOd for libaries! Free internet. I LOVE libraries. And I love Mr. George. Love, love, love him. Sometimes, I love him so much. I love him so much that I imagine being him. Someone who can just stand in front a people, blink his eyes a few times, and then saying things. I feel warm and

March Madness

My interest in politics has subsided somewhat of late. With my broken eardrum, I feel as though my entire brain has been pushed to one side of my head, and I find myself taking circuitous routes along even a straight path, as if I were caught in a spirograph. I no longer think in a fair and balanced way.

When the brain fails, there is always sports to turn to. I filled out a bracket on one of the sports sites, and I have Utah State winning it all. I like college basketball because most of the kids seem to care about whether they win or lose, and many of the prominent players are white kids. When I watch an NBA game, I see a bunch of disinterested, self-absorbed black players and a few pimped-out Europeans, but where are the heros who represent me? I would like to see a white player dominate a game, a white player who maybe drinks too much but promises hospitalized kids that he'll drop 50 points against the Knicks, and then he does it, by God! Go Utah State!

Spam and Water Boards

Mistakes happen. I'm trying to take a Zen approach to this whole sordid ordeal. There I was, minding my own business in the White House garden, mentally preparing myself for the second debate between Mr. George and that housedog-of-a man John Kerry, when all of a sudden my world turned black with tiny white spots. When I came to, I found myself cold and wet and naked, strapped to a water board somewhere in Cuba. As I felt myself being lowered up-side-down into the icy water, I shouted "I'm an American! I know Karl Ro-" before the water stifled my cries. What seemed like two minutes later, I was raised from out of the water. A man speaking Arabic with a thick Spanish accent punched me just below the rib cage and spoke in crazy jibberish. I can wrote no more of this. For the last few months I have been locked in a tiny prison cell, beaten and assaulted on a regular basis by my fellow countrymen. And countrywomen.

If there is a silver lining to this black cloud, it's this -- the U.S. government knows how to torture and extract information. I told them everything. Everything! I told them about petty cash at the A&P, I told them about the pumpkins and Mrs. Butterfield, who was married and lonely and soft to the touch, I even told them about the government-owned gardening equipment in my apartment. While I knew that I was being tortured for no good reason, I took comfort in knowing that many of the people in prison were being tortured for a good reason. I am but a tree in a large forest. A tree with a soggy lungs and a broken eardrum, but more importantly, part of a forest. A forest that has some miserable trees being beaten and raped, but a large and thriving forest nonetheless. I have moved on mentally, and I am ready to resume my gardening roles.

Please, dear reader, forgive my absence. I promise that it will never, ever happen again.

Big Loss in First Debate

Well, that didn't go well.

The mood is somber here at the White House. I've been sitting numbly in the garden north of the East Wing, playing mumbly peg with a spade. Mr. George did some of the things we practiced. He emphasized that Saddam was a bad man, that we must spread liberty and democracy by force, and that John Kerry keeps changing his position. But here's where Mr. George strayed from the plan:

* When John Kerry was criticizing the president, Mr. George kept sighing and wincing and rolling his eyes. The president looked like he was being scolded by his mother for drunk driving.

* The debate format was clear, but Mr. George didn't seem to understand how it worked. When Mr. Kerry finished and it was Mr. George's turn to speak, the president interrupted the moderator and asked to speak. Did he think Jim Lehrer was going to say, "No, Mr. President, I've decided not to let you have your turn"?

* Mr. George kept pausing for long periods. At one point, after he had paused for a long period, he said, "Please, just let me finish." But no one had interrupted him.

* Mr. George followed along with John Kerry's assertion that the greatest threat to American security is the proliferation of nuclear weapons, but he did so less enthusiastically and less eloquently. He should have stated that the greatest threat to American security is wishy-washy liberals who want to smoke pot and have abortions with terrorists. No that would have fired up the base!

Here comes Mr. George now. I need to go rub his temples. More later.

Practicing for the Debates

There will be three Presidential debates: one debate will deal with international issues, another debate will deal with domestic issues, and I'm not sure what the third debate will deal with &8212; maybe Barry Bonds. I'm kidding. During times like these, when a ne'er-do-well wastrel like John F. Kerry wants to assume leadership of the most powerful country in the history of the world, it's important to add levity to the dire situation. In any case, Mr. George wants me to talk and act like John Kerry so that he can practice debating. At first, I was just going to change my mind about every issue &8212; I have heard rumors that Kerry flip-flops &8212; but I want to do more research. I am going to find out what Kerry stands for and represent him to the best of my abilities while participating in tomorrow's practice debates. I'm excited.

Mr. George

Mr. George hasn't spent very much time at the White House recently due to a number of concerns, including security, an over-inquisitive media, and the old campaign trail. But to my delight and eternal honor, he visited me yesterday near the East Wing garden, where I was pruning the young sugar maples after the awful cicada attack in May.

MR GEORGE: Hey buddy, I want to talk to you. You're like one of those everyman John Doe people out there who live for the weekend stock car races, right?

ME: I don't know about that, Mr. George, but welcome back, sir.

MR GEORGE: Good. I have some questions for you. Think of this as one of them galloping polls that they do out there, only with a 100% margin of victory.

ME: OK, fire away.

MR GEORGE: OK, Leon, first question: Do you think we're winning the war on terror?

ME: It's Lenny, sir. Yes, we're winning the war on terrorism. We haven't been attacked since 9/11, not on our soil anyway, and if we do get attacked between now and November, it's because the terrorists don't want you to be re-elected, because you like to hunt them down and they don't like that.

MR GEORGE: He he, that's right. I hunt them down like dogs. They're afraid of me!

ME: That's right. The terrorists have scattered. We have them right where we want them. Scattered, or fumbling around in Iraq.

MR GEORGE: Let's get back to our poll. Question number 2: Do you approve of how we've handled the reconstruction of Iraq?

ME: Absolutely. Iraq will be a democracy shortly, as evidenced by their soccer team's success in the recent Olympics.

MR GEORGE: That's right, I told Rummy to throw those ungrateful bastards in jail for badmouthing me, but he said no, we had enough bad publicity from that Abu Grabby situation.

ME: Torture is a tricky thing that should be kept out of the public's eye, if you ask me.

MR GEORGE: One final question. Are you better off now than you were four years ago?

ME: Well, that's difficult to say. On the one hand, I live in a more secure America, thanks to you and our brave troops. On the other hand, my company laid me off and rehired me as a contractor, so now I don't have health insurance.

MR GEORGE: Do your push-ups and stay off the sauce, and you'll be fine. I'll mark you down as a yes. OK, Leonard, I'm going to give my poll results to Karl so that he can rest easy about these debates. Thank you for your time.

ME: Sure thing, sir.

My Mother is Not a Patriot

My mother has been giving me all sorts of grief about the war in Iraq. She says no one has paid attention to how badly it's going. Well, some people are paying attention, but no one wants to hear what they say. She keeps talking about Falluja this and Najaf that, and I told her that she should support the U. S. military forces because they're putting their lives on the line for their country, 'nuff said. But then my Mom spoke quite vocally about how the war in Iraq diverted troops and translators from Afghanistan, and now Afghanistan is a mess, something about the Taliban regaining control. She says that if Mr. George had just avoided the war in Iraq and continue to work with international allies on hunting down actual terrorists rather than going to war against someone who looks like the terrorists, he would have been considered a great president, even with all the domestic mess he's created. As it is, Mr. George will go down in history as a terrible president, once people realize that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 and once people realize that Iraq is in many ways worse than Vietnam.

It's clear that my mother is losing her grip on reality. Does anyone know about a drug that slows down senility?

Karl Rove Speaks

Karl Rove doesn't usually talk to me unless there's a mechanical problem with vice-president Cheney, but the other day he came up to me while I was spraying pesticide on the roses and just stood there shaking his head. I got a little nervous, so I asked him how it was going.

MR KARL: It's amazing the kind of stuff we're able to pull off, Lenny. Amazing.

ME: What do you mean?

MR KARL: Let's put it this way — if Al Gore had won in 2000, and if 9/11 had happened on his watch, and if the economy were in the gutter, and if Gore had gotten us into this war in Iraq based on bad intelligence, can you imagine any Democrat getting re-elected? Not a chance in hell!

ME: I don't appreciate that kind of language, sir.

MR KARL: Sorry, Lenny. Not a chance in heck. We'd claim that Gore should have foreseen the 9/11 war based on evidence like, oh I don't know, maybe a memo that says, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack in the United States." And then there's all warnings by the Hart-Rudman task force. That was a bipartisan commission doing everything it could to get the word out that thousands of U. S. citizens would die right here on American soil from terrorist attacks. And no one did anything about it! We would have bashed Gore so hard that he wouldn't get nominated by his own chickenshit party.

ME: Language, sir!

MR KARL: Sorry, Lenny. It's just that I'm feeling pretty good right now. I mean, I admire the heck out of myself. If I were running Kerry's campaign, gosh forbid, I'd be all over the oil crisis. We're running out of oil, and China's consuming more and more petroleum, so in a time when we need to be serious about alternative fuel sources, we have an oilman in office! That's hilarious. And we're winning in the polls!

ME: I don't know how you do it.

MR KARL: Two things. First, mini-scandals. There's the Plame affair, where someone in a high place outed a covert CIA agent. There's George using family ties to avoid combat and then going AWOL, there's Cheney's close ties with Halliburton, there's Bush's close ties with Kenneth Lay, there's Chalabi giving our secrets to Iranians while feeding us bad intel, there's — gee willickers, I can't keep it all straight in my head, and neither can anyone else. Nothing is too serious in and of itself, so it just seems like a lot of partisan bickering.

ME: What else?

MR KARL: We attack! And we do it the right way. We get other people to do our attacking so that George can stay above the fray. And here's something. We just make shit up. It's politics! Kerry is the most liberal senator. Kerry voted for 350 tax increases. Kerry was a coward during his brief combat stint in Vietnam, and then he came home and committed treason. Kerry flip-flops. And it doesn't matter that we make shit up because after Rush and Brit and Bill and Sean and the bloggers finish their diatribes, enough people start believing it. And then if the mainstream press doesn't run the stories, we call them liberal stooges and send out the attack dogs. We're working the system, Lenny. We're working it!

ME: It's for the good of the country.

MR KARL: That's right. It's for the good of the country. You know what I'd like to try to do next? I'd like to make Alan Keyes the next president.

How Mr. George Can Win

John Kerry flip-flops and didn't really serve in Vietnam — I know, because I was there, knee-deep in the muck and the blood. Unfortunately, the liberal media has helped him take a small lead over Mr. George in the polls. When Mr. George returns from his vacation in Texas, I will present to him my Four Point Plan for Four More Years of Fortitude:

1. Continue the negative attacks on John Kerry. This Swift Boat Thing for Truth is working great. Keep that up. These guys may not have their stories straight, but the important thing is that voters used to think that John Kerry won a Silver Star, a Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts, but now they know that one of his Purple Heart awards is questionable, that the amount of enemy fire during the Bronze Star "heroics" wasn't really that severe, that he only fought in combat for four quick months, and that John Kerry was in Cambodia during Tet but not during Christmas. When you compare Kerry's bizarre, almost cowardly, war actions against those of Mr. George, who do you think will win over voters?

2. Capture Osama Bin Laden. Saddam Hussein wasn't solely responsible for the attack of America.

3. Emphasize your connection to Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Jesus wouldn't raise taxes. Jesus wouldn't let homosexuals get married. Jesus wouldn't let human cells be used for research. But Jesus would take the fight to the enemy in the War on Terror.

4. Allow another terrorist attack to happen. That is, ignore any terrorist alerts you may receive. For example, if someone gives you a memo like the one that said, "Bin Laden Determined to Attack in the United States," ask for more specifics and take no action. After the attack, you can convince America that a vote for Kerry is a vote for terror.

Mr. George Takes a Vacation

Mr. George is still in Crawford, Texas. I miss him. Sometimes I miss him so much that my heart aches. Other times I just miss him like someone misses the scent of a new car. I remember our very first conversation, shortly after he took office.

MR. GEORGE: Well hello there, buddy. I see that you're a gardener. Sometimes I like to do a bit of gardening with the little people. How ya doin'?

ME: I'm doing well, sir. And how are you?

MR. GEORGE: Pretty good, pretty good. I'm the President of the United States.

ME: That's what I hear.

MR. GEORGE: Yep, I'm the President of these here United States.

ME: That's great. You must be very proud.

MR. GEORGE: Every boy dreams of being President of the United States. And that boy turns out being that I'm him.

ME: Your parents must be very proud.

MR. GEORGE: That's right. I can do anything I want.

ME: Well, not anything.

MR. GEORGE: Name one thing I can't do.

ME: OK. You can't go to Mars.

Mr. George just laughed and walked away. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if I see Mr. George one day waving an American flag on Mars.

Draft Dodger

Mr. George just can't get a break. First, the liberal media got all over him for not having reported for duty when he was in the reserves during the Vietnam War. Then they pressured Mr. George to release documents that could prove that he reported for duty during that time in Alabama. Mr. George doesn't like to be pressured, so he said no. The liberal media then did a cowardly workaround and managed to convince a court to release all of Mr. George's military records. It was a wonderful opportunity for Mr. George to prove once and for all that he fulfilled his duty. Unfortunately, a certain portion of the microfiche documents containing the records had been destroyed. It just so happens that the destroyed portion covered the four months during which the unpatriotic press claim that Mr. George was absent. Coincidence? I think not. If these liberals will stoop so low as to destroy military records, what will they do next?

Here's all you need to know: Mr. George W. Bush received an honorable discharge from the military. 'Nuff said.

Fortunate Escape

One minute, I was standing at a magazine kiosk; the next minute, I was trapped inside a small box, wondering why my head was spinning and why I was wearing a black leather jumpsuit. I tried to shout, but the red ball in my mouth prevented me from doing so. I thought I was blind for a few hours, until a dim ray of light entered the tiny air hole. I don't need to go into the details of my experience for several reasons, but suffice it to say that I escaped and have now returned to my gardening chores.

One question: Why would any tailor omit the seat when sewing a pair of pants? This type of clothing makes no sense to me whatsoever.

Swift Boats

As a veteran of the Vietnam War, I think it's important for us to have a President of the United States who is fit to be Commander in Chief. Of the 11 men who served in the same swift boat as John Kerry, 10 support him as President, while the other is too dead to offer an opinion. These men are obviously supporting John Kerry in the same way that cops refuse to rat out one of their own. They are bound by fraternal law, which forces them to swallow their contempt for a man whose first of three purple hearts was suspect and who testified before the Senate that the war was being waged in an unethical, sloppy manner. That's all fine and good, but why would I want to trust the opinion of the men who were in his boat? I care more about those veterans who served in the general vicinity of John Kerry.

I trust the group of men who have stepped forward to claim that John Kerry is a liar who betrayed and dishonored his country. None of these men actually served with John Kerry, but that is to their advantage — they maintain objectivity in their distance.

Fahrenheit 9/11

I finally broke down and saw Michael Moore's movie the other night at my mother's request, and I have to admit that I was taken aback. Mr. George looks like a stupid idiot in that movie. Plus the movie subtly implies that the War in Iraq is not a just war. So this morning, while I was trimming the grass near the security fence, I saw a member of the GOP Rapid Response team eating a breakfast burrito on a bench. I asked him about the movie.

"Fahrenheit 9/11 is full of lies, Lenny."

"Thank God," I said. "What are the lies?"

"For one, the movie includes mistruths, distortions, errors, and falsehoods, for example."

"Can you give a more concrete example?" I asked.

"Yes. It's propaganda. The whole movie is progaganda."

"I was hoping for something a little more concrete."

"Michael Moore is a big, fat idiot. Don't believe anything he says."

This Rapid Response person wasn't much help, but then I used the World Wide Web of the Internet to find out more, and there are some half-truths and distortions. For example, the name of the book that Bush read for seven minutes after being told that the country was under attack was called The Pet Goat, not My Pet Goat. And there are other cheap shots and convenient juxtapositions in the movie. So it's true: Michael Moore is a big, fat idiot.