Young, but not stupid, the reporter was dressed in blue-jeans, checkered shirt and cowboy boots. A Stetson sat atop his head perched at a jaunty angle. It was sufficiently battered and sweat-stained to make him look like any other ranch hand employed at the royal homestead.
"Excuse me Mr. Bush," the cub reporter yelled, trying to be heard over the ear-splitting buzz of the chain saw, "do you know there's a woman camped-out just beyond your gates?"
Bush took his finger off the tool's trigger and answered, "Sure do, Sonny. Maybe now that persnickety Congress will get off its fanny and pass my Deport the Homeless bill."
Placing his chain saw on the ground, Bush sat down on a tree he had cut down earlier. He motioned for the reporter to come over and sit next to him.
"Looks like Third-eye has earned himself a raise," the Emperor said, mopping the perspiration off his forehead with a red bandanna and slowly shaking his head in admiration.
"Who's Third-eye, Sir?"
"Oh sorry, Sonny," Bush chuckled, "don't you know I give everybody a nickname? Third-eye is Stephen Hadley, the national security advisor. He told me she was one of them shiftless, welfare-sucking homeless people. You gotta admit Third Eye has a great sense of humor," Bush gasped in-between gales of laughter.
Punching numbers on his cell phone, the Emperor guffawed into the device, "You tell Third Eye that was a good one. He's getting closer and closer to a promotion or the National Medal of Freedom."
The perplexed reporter waited until Bush had put the phone back into his pocket and asked with great trepidation, "Uh, uh . . . are you aware that a lot of people are saying you're out of touch with the real world?"
"You bet your boots I am, Sonny. And those traitorous, rumor-mongers are the very same people that are trying to drag this great country down the road to perdition. We can thank our lucky stars I've got Turd Blossom around to knock 'em down when they get too cocky."
Mistaking the reporter's shocked, glassy-eyed stare for ignorance, Bush continued, "Turd Blossom is Karl Rove, Sonny. Me and Turd Blossom go back a long way. You need take more of an interest in current events kid," Bush advised, giving the young man a fatherly pat on the shoulder.
"Forget the war in Iraq and that publicity-seeking Gold Star mother camped on my doorstep; I'm protecting this great nation from the godless and immoral evil doers who would like to turn it into a modern-day Sodom or Gomorrah. I just had Gen. Kevin P. Byrnes relieved of duty. I don't care if he is a four-star general with 36 years of distinguished service to the United States Army. He's accused of having an extra-marital affair; do you know what means son? It means he's an adulterer - a fornicator - an evil doer. 'Out of touch with what's going on in the real world?' Shoot, Sonny, I'm saving the real world . . ."
The cub reporter stumbled away in shock as the Emperor began quoting verses from Leviticus. Moments before he was captured by the CIA, accused of being an "enemy combatant", and flown to a torture room at Guantanamo Bay, he related his encounter with Bush in the brush to me.
Forget Mrs. Sheehan's need to try and make sense of her soldier-son's death in Iraq. We can all stick another yellow-ribbon decal on our cars to show we're supporting our military in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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