ACT II, SCENE 3 Characters: GENERAL STANLEY MCCHRYSTAL, erect posture, brow furrowed, gaunt frame, thoroughbred stride. McChrystal striding down a White House corridor, away from the Oval Office. PRESIDENT OBAMA has just finished explaining that he is considering replacing proven counterinsurgency techniques in Afghanistan with a new plan proposed by VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN. The new plan relies in equal parts on a) ninjas and b) trading hundreds of thousands of "Best of Yusuf Islam/Cat Stevens" 8-tracks to Pashtun teenagers in return for their promises to enlist in the Afghan Army. JOE BIDEN, golf-ball white teeth, transplanted hair, checking his twitter account on his iPhone, walking toward the Oval office. Biden stops, looks up, holds out his hand to McChrystal: Joe Biden: "Hey Stan." The Man: ... Joe Biden: "Sorry. Stanley? I always get confused with you military guys, about what I should call you." The Man: ... Joe Biden: "General McChrystal?" (General McChrystal gives Biden a feral smile, holds out his right hand. Biden grabs it, then puts his left on McChrystal's bicep, a la Bill Clinton.) The Man: "Mr. Vice President." Joe Biden: "Hey listen, Stan, I’m sorry about this whole report thing where I recommended troop reductions to Barry. It’s just that we’ve been in Afghanistan for 8 years already and nothing to show for it except a disputed election for this Karzai guy. We need results. Yesterday." The Man: ... Joe Biden: "And as you know, nobody has ever conquered Afghanistan. Hitler couldn’t do it. Napoleon couldn’t do it. Heck, even Admiral Hirohito lost 4 aircraft carriers to the Taliban back in the Big One." The Man: ... Joe Biden: "So I says to Rahm: "Time for a shift in strategy." And you know what? Barry agrees." The Man: "Hooah, Mr. Vice President." Joe Biden: "I mean, I’ve crunched the numbers. We’re spending 30 dollars in Afghanistan for every one dollar we spend in Pakistan. And Pakistan is what matters. Pakistan is the "schwerpunkt."" The Man: ... Joe Biden: "Yeah. Schwerpunkt. German word. Great word. Learned it from Sarkozy. There’s just no better language than German to explain certain concepts, you know? Schadenfreude. Fellatio. Zeitgeist. Gestalt. Botox. Weltanschauung. But I digress." The Man: ... Joe Biden: "You drinking what I’m pouring here, Stan?" The Man: ... Joe Biden: "To give you an idea, this decision would be like if you were at the Waldorf-Astoria, and on this one tray, there was this piece of ceviche, or something delicious like that, you know? And next to it was this other tray with, like, 30 more pieces of delicious ceviche. But there’s a fire or something disastrous like that in the kitchen, and you need to just get outta there, dig? And you don’t want to leave the ceviche, but you can only save one tray. The Man: ... Joe Biden: "So you save the tray with the 30 pieces of ceviche, right? I mean, am I right? Or am I right?" The Man: "If you say so, Mr. Vice President." Joe Biden: "The tray with one piece of ceviche, see, that’s Afghanistan." The Man: "Yes, Mr. Vice President. I see your point." Joe Biden: "Now don’t get me wrong, me and Harry and Nancy and the rest of the Capitol Hill gang think building schools and paving roads is good. But last I checked, those schools and roads aren’t union jobs, now are they?" The Man: "Of course, Senator. I know all about how Congress works." Joe Biden: "I mean, I'm not one of these *** cats who thinks America's best days are behind us." The Man: ... Joe Biden: "Seriously, you don't think I'm one of these *** cats, do you?? The Man: ... Joe Biden: "Because I'm not." The Man: ... Joe Biden: "Like I said, I was totally on board six months ago. When we brought you on board to help execute on the plan where we provide security? Ink blots? Try to keep terrorists from splashing acid on schoolgirls faces? That sort of thing? Like my good friend George Bush did in Iraq." The Man: ... Joe Biden: "Seriously, Stan. I’m not a *** cat. Remember those pirates off the coast of Somalia? I was like, "Rahm, we just should tell Barry to have some of our ninjas pop some caps into their skinny asses. At night. From a moving position. Onto a moving target. Through glass. Bobbing up and down. Three simultaneous head shots. Like at a carnival. That's what I told Barry he should do. And he did it. And you know what? I was right. Ninjas are so TOTALLY where it's at." The Man: ... Joe Biden: "And afterward, Rahm was like, "Excellent suggestion broseph! I mean Joseph!Make those skinnies bitches think twice before messing with Uncle Sam." The Man: ... Joe Biden: "And then Rahm is like, "but maybe it would be a better idea to minimize your seminal role in all of this. Make this look like Barry's play. Give him some confidence, you know?" And of course, I'm a team player, you know that, and I agreed, so you can't let that story get out, okay?" The Man: "Hooah, Mr. Vice President, I can keep a secret." Joe Biden: "Anyways, me and Rahm, we were so pumped up after that. By the way, did you know that Rahm was in the Israeli Army? He was, like, some kind of Mossad paratrooper slash assassin slash hacker – Anyway, Rahm was so excited afterward that he did this thing where he flipped off these dead notional pirates. Except that let me knowledge you with this: Rahm doesn’t even HAVE a middle finger. Seriously. Next time you see him, check that *** out." The Man: ... Joe Biden: "And let me tell you -- Rahm claims to have lost that middle finger at Arby’s, where he worked in high school. But I’m not sure I buy it. I think he was gutting some Palestinian terrorist with a butter knife, and...
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Posted
Sep 24 2009, 07:08 AM
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