by FREDERICA VON McTOAST-HYPHEN, Alternate Reality News Service People Writer
In the popular imagination, serial killers devise fiendishly clever clues to taunt investigators, puzzles that require esoteric knowledge, such as the drinking proclivities of Golden Age science fiction writers, the geography of Atlantis or the idle dreams of the square root of negative numbers, to solve. (In the unpopular imagination, serial killers wear stained, ripped t-shirts, drink no-name beer and couldn't solve a word search puzzle if it only contained a single term that was set in bold type in the grid.) The reason they do this is because a part of their brains that isn't devising fiendishly gruesome ways of desecrating the corpses of their murder victims is appalled by the part of their brains that is devising fiendishly gruesome ways of desecrating the corpses of their murder victims, and is doing its best to get them nicked.
Could this be true for politicians?
That is the premi - okay, yes, I'm referring to one politician in particular. But, it is not common journalistic practice to write: "Could this be true for one politician in particular?" (On the other hand, it is not uncommon journalistic practice to write: "Under the hoarfrost moon, the calligrapher calumnifies descent." That's why we have editors.)
That is (more or less) the premise behind the book Dismembered Limbs and the Broken Vesampuccerian Dream: What Hannibal Delecterabull and President Ronald McDruhitmumpf Have in Common (Number Seven May Shock and Awe You). In it, author Octavia Pintotubular argues that Ronald McDruhitmumpf never wanted to be President, and that he has been dropping broad clues that he should be stripped of his office before he Executive Orders again.
The pattern began even before he was elected President when, on the campaign trail, he said, "Fenwick, if you're listening - and I hope you are - if you have incriminating Hillary Roocartoncleveman emails, now would be a really good time to make them public." Two days later, thousands of hacked Dumbopratic emails appeared on Wiwileaks.
According to Pintotubular, the subtext of the candidate's statement was: "I'm not as far behind in the polls as I am comfortable with - there's an outside chance that I could win this thing! What a disaster that would be! Maybe if it looks like I'm conspiring with Fenwick to steal the election, the Cold Worriers in my base will abandon me, and I can go back to running my financial empire after the election. A man - even one as bigly accomplished as me - can dream, can't he‽"
Another example happened after President McDruhitmumpf fired Federal Bureau of Instigations Director James Comeonecomally. In a subsequent interview with Lester Holtrenfrew&co, he stated, "I was always going to fire Comeonecomally, knowing that there was no good time to do it. But, this Fenwicker thing? It was a made up thing. I had to do what I had to do to stop it."
What President McDruhitmumpf was really saying, wrote Pintotubular, was, "Gord, I hate being president! Hate it! Hate it! Hate it! All those long meetings with such serious people saying blah blah blah blah blah!* I don't know how we managed to mess up and win the election, but I'm giving the Vesampuccerian people a chance to make it right. I just confessed to obstructing justice. Kick me out of office, people! Kick me out now!"
Unfortunately, like an especially thick police detective (Inspector Cloulesseaumygord comes to mind), the Vesampuccerian people entirely misinterpreted the underlying message.
Pintotubular has had to add a chapter to her book to cover the President's recent declaration of a state of emergency to get funding for his border wall (ah, the joys of print on demand self-publishing!). "I could do the wall over a longer period of time. I didn't need to do this," the President admitted. "But, I'd like to get it done faster. You know, like while there still is a Unites States of Vesampucceri to protect?"
Pintotubular's suggested subtext? "I just admitted that there is no emergency. Meanwhile, I'm taking money away from veterans to pay for a wall to solve a crisis that everybody else involved doesn't believe exists! I'm taking money away from police who are keeping drugs out of our country to build a wall to keep drugs out of our country! How crazy is that? And, it won't even succeed at its stated mission, since most drugs come through ports of entry, not across the border! Honestly, people! How much more of this can you take‽"
As seductive as it is, Pintotubular admits that her comparison of the President to serial killers has a serious flaw: "Serial killers get stopped at the end of the episode. When will we stop this President?"
* That's five blahs, so it passes the threshold of being really, really, really, really, really boring.