Boobie Access Punditry
(from Fernando Po, U.S.A., America's post-literate to Plato's Cave)

The Boobie Rove would hatch a scheme
Notoriously sick
And then popular magazines
Would photograph George quick
Before someone could ask about
The new transparent trick

But few would ask and fewer tell
What lay behind the scene
Why give the background context when
His face looks so serene?
Like life within his bubble shown
Upon a TV screen

And Boobie pundits sold themselves
For access warm and clean
They called their city Emerald
And wore their glasses green
And told themselves that touting tripe
Did really not demean

"It's not unseemly; not unfair,"
They'd not unlikely write;
Or say, "That's not to disagree,
" Or "Grey is black and white;"
Or "On the other hand it seems"
While claiming left means right.

They'd say "not bad" instead of "good"
(Which might imply a stand)
Equivocation, so it seems,
Makes even nothing bland
Which means escape from any sort
Of needed reprimand

As Orwell put it in his day:
Inflated style counts, too,
As euphemism well designed
To camouflage a view
Not unimaginatively
Not unbad nor untrue

When rabbits, not-unsmall, are by
Not-unblack doggies chased
Across not-ungreen grass we see
How English is debased
By unrepentant scribblers who
Our language have defaced

It just appeared to those who lived
Like pheasant under glass
That hothouse orchids should not have
To sweat or wipe the ass
When such unpleasantness should fall
On someone poor and crass

But anyway the pomp and show
Provided just the slops
That made scriptwriting easier
Than using brooms and mops
To clean up after Boobie George
Had coined more malaprops

George liked the word "command" a lot
It meant he got to play
With soldiers, sailors, planes, and bombs
The whole damn livelong day
Whatever came into his mind
The Boobie George could say

And none dared counter with a quiz
Or ask him why he said
So many dumb and awful things
That made the world see red;
Or why so many of his troops
Came home in boxes, dead

The Boobie press did not complain
They liked commanding, too.
It meant that lapping up some leaks
Was all they had to do.
They'd sit beside their Rolodex
And make a call or two.

So Boobies here and Boobies there
Took their commands and sat;
Or jumped, or cringed, or rolled over,
Or lay down on the mat,
Or played dead just like they were told,
Or just looked dumb and fat

They needed some Commandments and
They needed them in brief
They needed a commander and
They needed him in chief
They didn't care if those commands
Came from a bumbling thief

Unlike those free and cultured folks
Who lived in foreign lands
They needed all their thoughts summed up
In few and simple strands
The "freedom-loving" Boobies could
Not live without commands

Yet Boobies liked to think themselves
Possessed of courage brave
While all the while kowtowing to
A known and clumsy knave
Who issues orders on a whim
Which they take like a slave

Like Pharoah building pyramids
With slogans like this one:
"So let the word be written and
So let the deed be done,"
Thus Boobie George began a war
That soon ran out of fun.

Now all of his Commandments fail
And show one in command
Of SNAFU and of FUBAR like
We've scarce seen in our land
Yet still the Boobie pundits drone:
"But on the other hand ..."

So Dubya started wars for peace
To set some minds on fire
"Democracy" went marching and
Poured gas upon a pyre
Which funeral consumed in flames
A dumb Crusade for hire

As H. L. Menken said before
The cause of foreign strife
Lies chiefly back in Washington
Where partying is rife
Between two sparring spouses wed
Unhappily for life

The metaphor works just like this:
Consider man the beast
What does he care for most in life?
What does he favor least?
A happy, tranquil life at home
Or drunken, rowdy feast?

As temple whores and bacchanals
And pubs and bars have shown
No answer to these questions need
Pose any great unknown
What one would think a man might want
He often will disown

As greener grasses always lie
Upon the farther side
Of whatever may lie between
A husband and his bride
So fools rush in where they should not
While wise ones stay outside

And so the fools at Washington
Fight madly for the grail
Of power, money, sex, and fame
And very largely fail
Because they count on wit and strength
Both innocent and frail

And Alexander Hamilton
Said very much the same:
That Presidents and Congresses
Would gladly pin the blame
On someone else if war appeared
A profitable game

Attacks by the United States
Upon a foreign land
Have seldom needed rationales
If business needs a hand
Thus war looks quite attractive when
Supply exceeds demand

To build a bomb creates one job
Or two or three or four
To drop the bomb requires a plane
Which antes up the score
And if both bomb and plane explode
That calls for even more

To turn the entire land into
One giant factory
Producing nothing else of worth
But war's machinery
Earns meager wages for the dupes
But crushes liberty

But even foul winds such as war
Will blow someone no ill
Hence those who do not suffer stand
To gain from those who will
So war pays handsomely and that
Explains the urge to kill

The US never had the troops.
It doesn't now nor will.
The US never had the funds.
It cannot pay the bill.
So saying that it will not leave
Sounds little less than shrill

Behind the scenes a panic grows
Because as facts unfold
Excuses for not leaving start
To sound both stale and old
The only question now involves
The cost in lives untold

But he who never pays the bills
And never counts the dead
Lets nothing but wild dreams intrude
Into his empty head
Asleep throughout each day and night
Upon his feather bed

The lobbyists for drugs and pills
Fill up the campaign stash
With profits squeezed from those who need
Their cocaine, weed, and hash
While daughter debutantes come out
In quite a lovely splash

Like warlords in Afghanistan
They love to grow their dope
And sell it at a marked-up price
To addicts without hope
With credit cards and poppies they
Have woven quite a rope

What Nader called "Crime in the Suites"
Has such a lovely ring
It points to where the finger should
With such a simple sting
Yet Presidents and Congresses
Continue with their fling

Grown used to their entitlements
The laws and rules they flout
If caught they do some cushy time
At Club Med, catching trout
No snapping necks and jerking toes
Or justice meted out

If I ran my own business like
The bureaucrats, I'd fail
If I embezzled billions, why I'd find myself in jail
Or tarred and feathered, upside down,
Hung dangling from a rail

But no one gets run out of town
In Washington these days
In fact the Boobies send them back
Lest any dollar strays
Away from grasping larceny
That seeks to prove it pays

When GIs died, sage pundits sniffed:
"That's just the way it goes."
When some lost hands and fingers and
Some others lost their toes:
“Oh, don't be churlish," sage men sneered,
“They had no need of those."

Sage pundits loved that "churlish" word
Like Marie Antoinette
They thought that everyone ate cake
Like they did; so why fret
About a simple lack of bread?
How churlish can you get?