“Ariel, you nut!” United States President George Junior affably said. “Whachya doin’?”
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon stopped dead in his tracks. “Wha – what does is look like?” he spluttered.
“It looks like you’re building you a big ol’ fence,” George Junior responded.
Ariel pulled himself up to his full height (all four feet of it) and belligerently said: “Yes. That’s right. I’m erecting a fence. So what?”
“Well,” George Junior reasonably pointed out, “it is my office.”
The chain link fence, six feet high, broke through one wall of the Oval Office, snaked through furniture past the President’s desk and disappeared out a hole in the far wall. A couple of workers hammered nails into the floor to assure the stability of the fence.
“I think it adds something to the room,” Ariel enthused. “Don’t you?”
“Sure,” the President groused, “an obstacle. How’m I s’posed t’get to my desk?”
“We have taken that into consideration, Mister President,” Ariel smoothly stated. “Simply go to the end of the hall. There, you will find a staircase. Walk down three floors. Walk north/northeast for almost half a mile, go through the commissary, walk due north about 100 feet and you will come upon another staircase. Walk up two floors. Next to the stairwell will be an elevator. Take that up one floor. You’ll come out near your residence. You can walk over to your desk from there.”
“It seems like a lot of trouble to go through just to get to my very own desk,” George Junior pouted.
“It’s good for your cardiovascular,” Ariel replied, adding: “and Israeli security.”
Well. No American politician with a hope of remaining in office is going to argue with the issue of Israeli security, even if it makes negotiating the office he is in tricky. So, George Junior went to the end of the hall, down three flights of stairs, north for about a mile before realizing he was going in the wrong direction, doubled back, went north/northeast for almost half a mile, through the commissary (stopping only for a sticky bun and a latte), north 100 feet, up two flights of stairs, up another flight by elevator and through his residence to his desk. It took 45 minutes.
Sitting behind his desk, President George Junior drank his latte and fantasized about all the cool ways Saddam Hussein could be killed. Garroting. Lethal injection. Hanging. Electrocution. Firing squad. Electrocution. Beheading. Lethal injection. Electrocution. Lethal injection. Electrocution. Lethal –
You can take the governor out of Texas, but you can’t take the Texas out of the governor.
In time, Colin Powell walked into the Oval Office. “Mister Pres -” Powell stopped short when he saw the fence. “What is this?”
“A security fence,” the President cheerfully told him.
“Why do we need a security fence through the heart of the White House?” Powell asked, reasonably, or so he thought.
“I, uhh, I’m not big on the details,” President George Junior affably responded. “You should probably ask Ariel.”
Before Powell could respond, Karl Rove walked into the Oval Office. “Mister President, we need -” Rove stopped short when he saw the fence. “What is this?”
“A security fence built by the Israelis!” Powell, outraged, answered.
“Oh,” Rove said. After a couple of seconds of thoughtful silence, he continued: “Mister President, we need your signature on some Guantamo Bay execution orders.”
Powell was livid. “We can’t let this fence stand!” he bellowed.
Rove looked at him benignly and, as if to a child, calmly explained that, “Israeli security is a primary objective of this administration. If Ariel Sharon’s government feels it is in their interests to build a fence through the White House, who are we to tell him not to?”
“How can building a fence through the White House be in the interest of the Israeli government?” Powell protested.
“Maybe they think it will help keep moderates away from the President,” Rove answered, pointedly looking at Powell. “I understand the next phase of building involves bricks and mortar…”
This only fueled Powell’s anger. “We cannot let this fence stand!”
Rove shrugged. “We’ve got an election coming up in less than 16 months,” he argued. “We cannot afford to piss off the Christian right – if they sit it out, we will almost certainly lose. They want us to show strong support for the state of Israel. The fence stands.”
Powell turned to the President for support. Unfortunately, the President had long tuned out the debate, and was pondering the possibility of sneaking down to the commissary to get another doughnut…