Thoughts of Chairman Mack

Mack Hall

In the 1960s the obedient paraded up and down the streets of China waving Mao’s Little Red Book and killing people. Among Chairman Mao’s sayings was “Political power comes from the barrel of a gun.” If so, then muggers are not muggers; they’re Jeffersonian democrats re-interpreting the Constitution as a living document to be redefined every generation mwamwamwa…mwa…mwamwamwawawa.

And speaking of the Constitution, one reads of lawyers who carry pocket copies of that venerable document as a reminder of the secondary source of law in this nation.

Christians have been known to carry copies of the Bible (known as “MY Bible”) around, though these are more often left on car dashboards or camouflaged in embroidered covers along with arsenals of multi-colored hi-lighters.

Whether or not girls will be making pillows of the Thoughts of Chairman Obama has yet to be determined, but the book is now for sale to all the faithful. You can now replace pocket editions of Mao, the Constitution, and the Bible with the wisdom of the President who has been President for a week or so.

Yes, The History Company (www.historycompany.com) offers a little blue booklet called Pocket Obama at $49.50 for ten copies (Thanks to newsbusters.org for the heads up). The fulsome advertisement compares President Obama favorably to President Kennedy and Martin Luther King, but does not offer a Pocket Kennedy or a Pocket King. I suppose this is because after a while one runs out of pockets. The cell ‘phone, the water bottle, the MePod, the BrickBerry, and Pocket Obama must take precedence.

And Pocket Obama will definitely take precedence, because www.historycompany.com commands very precisely that “It is an unofficial requirement for every citizen to own, to read, and to carry this book at all times.” Hey, I am not making this up. What is not clear is the distinction between an official requirement and an unofficial requirement, what the sanctions are for not meeting the requirement, and just who is making the requirement. As Number 2 says in The Prisoner, “That would be telling.”

Maybe the guards / counselors / therapists at Guantanamo will start giving free copies to prisoners.

You might want to hurry and buy your copy of Pocket Obama; it will go well with your Chuck and Di mugs, your Pat Paulsen for President button, your Circuit City and Linens ‘N’ Things discount cards, your love beads, your mood ring, and your lava lamp.

But I must leave off now and go weep copious tears before my Ronald Reagan poster.