It saddened me that Saturday Night Live was a rerun this week, because I had the opening sketch all planned out in my head. It went something like this…
There would be Seth Meyers as John Kerry, decked out in a ski suit, poles in each hand, calling for a filibuster from atop the Swiss Alps.
“I’m reporting for duty,” he would intone. “Maybe not in person, but in spirit. Like the spirit of America. I am, as you may have heard, a great patriot, as proven undoubtedly by my three, yes three, purple hearts. And as such I am afforded the right to report for duty all the way from Switzerland. Which is where I am. You know, in case you were wondering. I’m here with fellow patriot Ted Kennedy and my wife Teresa Heinz (sans Kerry) to discuss global economic policy. I also plan on swapping manicure tips with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, and maybe catch an acoustic session of Bono singing ‘With or Without You’ to Kofi Annan. But only if time permits.”
Cut away to Kerry sitting next to an inebriated Ted Kennedy at a classy bar. Kerry sits on his stool, delicately shelling a peanut. The narration continues.
“So I was in the hotel bar with Teddy last night, making sure he didn’t drink and ski, and he slurred to me,
‘Johnny, we’ve gotta do something about this Alioto business. They’re talking smack about us all over the blogosphere, and as you well know, the only smack I enjoy involves women’s asses.’
‘What do you propose?’ I droned at him. ‘We’re the minority party. Not because we elect minorities, of course, but because we can’t win anything larger than a bake-off.’
‘Don’t you think I know that, Jim?’
‘John.’
‘Whatever. Don’t you see that this is our shot, man? Hillary’s faking being a moderate again. Harry’s up to his snivelly eyeglasses in Abramoff dough. Biden’s still up in the judiciary committee room finishing his last Alioto question. Al’s sounding nuttier than me after a bottle of Jim Bean. ’08 is ours, Johnny my boy! Now do you want to seize the day, or do you want to lose the primary to that sexy Obama guy? Or maybe Toothy McLawsuit? How would you like them apples, Jan?’ he bellowed, banging down his empty decanter.
‘Toothy…?’ I queried intellectually.
‘Your last idiotic running mate. The itinerant preacher for tort reform. There was a winning horse. Not. Now pay attention! The Democratic Party is ass-deep in kook money. And all of it could be ours. They think we have a shot in hell of keeping Alioto off the bench. I know, I know, ridiculous, but there it is. There is but one course of action we must take.’
‘Surrender?’
‘Filibuster!’ he cried between hacking coughs.
‘On what grounds?’ I whined with nuance.
‘Oh who the hell cares? Make something up. The guy hates gays. Mexicans. Elderly Filipino women. Or just go with abortion. That always works. Plus it shuts those NARAL harpies up for awhile.’
‘We tried abortion. It didn’t work.’
‘Well, give me something else that starts with an A.’
‘Asthma?’
‘Yeah, yeah. Let’s go with asthma. He likes it. He supports it. He wants to take away people’s inhalers. No, kids’ inhalers. That’s it. Judge Alioto wants to kill kids that have asthma.’
‘I don’t think that’ll fly, Ted.’
‘Sure it will. About thirteen people in the whole country pay attention to what gets said on the Senate floor. I could get up there without pants and no one would notice. In fact I have, on several occasions. All right, I’ve got mine. Now you come up with a reason to filibuster.’
‘It is my deepest conviction that Judge Samuel Alito will infringe upon the civil liberties--’
‘Bam! I just fell asleep and hit my head on the podium. What the hell kind of boring-ass crap is that?’
‘I’m verbose.’ I shrugged regally, racking my brain for my latest Vocabulary Word of the Day.
‘You’re human NyQuil, John. Come on, make up with some really insane reason. Something that’ll make no sense that they’ll play on CNN every twenty minutes.’
‘Umm…I hear Ann Coulter likes him. How about that.’
‘Ann Coulter. Now that’s a fine piece of--- Yeah, that’s brilliant. Asthma and Ann Coulter. On the basis of that, who wouldn’t filibuster? To not shut down the senate to discuss the matter indefinitely would be criminal!’
‘Do you really believe that, Ted?’
‘Grow a pair, John. I haven’t believed a word I’ve said since the seventies. What, like you believe the crap that comes out of yours? Oh yeah, like you really gave mouth-to-mouth to an effing hamster.’
‘I stand on principle and integr—who am I kidding? I just want the authority to give myself more purple hearts.’
‘And more you shall have, mi compadre. The more you shall have. Take my word for it, Johnny. If you filibuster, the kooks will come.’
Cut back to Kerry on the slopes, addressing the camera.
“And with that, my friend, the senior senator from the great state of Massachusetts, passed out on the counter. But it really got me thinking. My conscience cannot allow this to continue any longer. Regardless of whether or not it will hurt my chances of running for President in 2008 (which I have yet to rule out), I must speak my peace. I know many of my fellow senators desire cloture in the matter of Judge Samuel Alito. But it is my deepest conviction that Judge Alito will infringe upon the civil liberties—Uh, I mean, it is glaringly obvious to me that, like my brothers-in-philosophy the French, it is time for our Revolution. But instead of ‘Off with their heads,’ I say ‘Out with the cloture!’ The man is an obvious racist, and perhaps even marched with Democratic Senator Robert Byrd at one of his KKK rallies. I’m not sure. They wear those hoods and all. But nevertheless, we are certain that Judge Alito will strip away a woman’s right to kill her children. As evidence, I shall offer the testimony of a clerk at a Wal-Mart in Jersey that saw, with her own two eyes, Judge Alito buying a suspicious amount of coat hangers. Does the man own that many coats? I do not think so, and neither does Senator Kennedy. We call on you, our fellow Democrats, to join with us in this noble filibuster, just as soon as we are finished on the bunny slope. God Bless America.”
Cut to Hillary Clinton watching the above on television, remote in hand.
“Son of a bitch.”
In the background, on the TV Kerry says
“Live from New York it’s Saturday Night!”
You know, something like that…