Roderick Spode Goes to the Olympics

Mack Hall

Dictators are not as sartorially formal as they used to be. Wodehouse’s fictional Roderick Spode practiced dictator-poses before a framed photograph of Benito Mussolini (as, apparently, did Bill Clinton; notice the pouty lower lip thing). China’s Hu, though, overlord of a larger slave empire than that of the slacker Hitler, forswears uniforms and moustaches and stern looks in favor of nicely-tailored sports coats, benign smiles, and Rotarian back-slaps.

Well, if a man’s going to speed your demise (Hey, Hu, what really happened to the Panchen Lama in 1989 while you were the gauleiter of Tibet, hmmmm? Heart attack, you say?), he might as well wear casual clothes and eye your corpse through designer glasses.

Someday the participation of the democracies in the Peiping / Peking / Beijing games will be viewed with as much embarrassment as showing up at the 1936 Olympics and posing prettily for snapshots beneath all those swastikas. Now, as then, the attitude by visitors and locals alike is very Feldwebel Schultzian: "I know NOTHING!"

Olympic games under tyrannies will never be open about their true athletic endeavors. Behind the gymnastics and basketball and footraces are the eternal competitions of dictators. This year’s winners and losers are:

Conquering Small Nations: Russia over Georgia takes the gold; China over Tibet takes the silver.

Executing Prisoners for the Harvest of Their Organs for Rich People: China by a hair-trigger.

State Religions: The Chinese Patriotic Church Not Associated With That Jew-Plutocrat Outfit in Rome falls to Hugo Chavez’s New and Improved Venezuelan Catholic Church Not Associated With That Jew-Plutocrat Outfit in Rome. The medals are presented by an Anglican priestess doing liturgical dance to the musical stylings of Dan Shutte.

Murdering Women: Gold: The Taliban, Silver: Al Quaeda, Bronze: Hamas.

Poisoned Foodstuffs Production: Gold: China, Silver: China, Bronze: China.

Blaming America for Everything That’s Wrong in the World: Gold: Russia; Silver, Iran; Bronze: China.

Geekiest Dictator: Gold: North Korea’s Kim Jong-Ill; Silver: Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe; Bronze: Russia’s Vladimir Pewwwtin. Dishonorable Mention: Nancy Pelosi (The people can’t afford gas? Let them walk. Congress is dismissed.).

Most Oppressive Regime: Gold: North Korea, Silver: Zimbabwe; Bronze: Canada’s Human Rights Commission (Freedom of speech? Canadians don’t need no stinkin’ freedom of speech!).

The closing ceremonies of the Dictator Olympics will include a musical tribute to Saddamn Hussein along with a slide show of his death camps and his former friends being thrown to their deaths from bridges and buildings.
And now, while much of the world suffers, we return to our feature presentation of Hannah Montana’s latest stupid cell-phone-camera stunt.