The Reporter in the Closet

Mack Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

The Reporter in the Closet

In a masterful, post-dawn kinetic journalism action strike, Vice-President Joe-the-Tank-Engine Biden’s henchminions made the world just a little bit safer for the most open administration in American history by confining a reporter in a closet and posting a Sergeant Schultz outside the door.

Amtrak Joe was a guest last week at Winter Falls, the Florida mansion of a developer and philanthropist who was hosting a fundraiser for Senator Bill Nelson. The pool reporter for the event was the Orlando Sentinel’s Scott Powers, who upon arrival was Colonel Klinked to a closet lest he contaminate the $500-a-plate faux nobility with the presence of his wretched, ink-stained self.

And certainly there were plenty of closets from which to choose; Winter Falls was designed with all the understated elegance of an oil-sheik-princess’s concept of a shopping mall, bridging the architectural and aesthetic gap between Hello Kitty and an airport.

After an hour or so Mr. Powers was given a brief parole to listen passively to the speeches given (for a price) by the champions of the workin’ folks, and then escorted back to The Cooler without being given a chance to ask any questions of the elected members of the government or talk with any of the Great Washed.

Mr. P wasn’t permitted to refresh himself at the buffet, even in silence. According to the Orlando Sentinel the pre-prandial snacks for the guests (no scriveners need apply) included caprese crustini. I don’t know what caprese crustini is, but then I’m not a welder, miner, or truck driver. The caprese crustini was topped off with oven-dried mozzarella and basil, and I’m not sure how Basil felt about that. Lunch featured Chicken Caesar (no comment) and vegetable wraps.

Vegetables – does this call for a legume change?

The next time I visit the truck stop café’ I’m going to try the caprese crustini in solidarity with The People.

All Mr. Powers got for sustenance was a bottle of water, and nothing was said about how radioactive it might have been.

Mr. Powers was not imprisoned, as some have alleged; surely he could have demanded that he be released, but then he would have missed out on a good joke worth a couple of good columns, some publicity for his paper, and a notch in his resume’. Mr. P sent his editor a picture of the closet via his Blackberry, and so could have dialed 911. A false imprisonment charge, unlike the wings of an angel, wouldn’t fly.

Still, this is not pretty for the President who, for reasons best known to himself and perhaps The Voices, has ordered the military to drop bombs on Libya. The first bomb he dropped, though, was on himself, two years ago, by allowing his grey eminences to pair him with a vice-president who makes PeeWee Herman look positively statesmanlike.

The homeowner, to his credit, later telephoned Mr. Powers to apologize for the enclosetment, maintaining that, like Sergeant Shultz, he knew nothing. Perhaps he sent Jeeves over to the Orlando Sentinel offices with a takeout plate and a festive selection of new typewriter ribbons.

So who is this great nation bombing next week? Canada, maybe? Or Luxembourg? Perhaps the Principality of Liechtenstein? But the President doesn’t need to bomb Liechtenstein; it’s small and harmless and so can be stuffed into a closet for any reason or for no reason at all.

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Jihad Joe Inspires the Troops

Mack Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com

Jihad Joe Inspires the Troops

On Independence Day Vice-President Joe Biden, America’s ambassador of good will, made a surprise visit to our Frankenstein’s monster, Iraq. While giving a speech about how well the war is going or something, some of the lads outside The Green Zone dropped a mortar round into Fort Maginot to remind the white-wine-and-cheese set that Abdul and Achmed are a little miffed about not being invited to the party.

A spokesman said that this was an isolated incident, no one was hurt, and no damage was done. Nothing to see here, folks, just move along, no cameras, please, and just ignore those dead bodies on the croquet lawns and that little man behind the curtain.

Jihad Joe can now join John Fitzgerald Kerry and Hillary Clinton in the pantheon of great American war heroes. He’ll probably get a medal for cussing small business owners while under fire. In the meantime, the E-4 on patrol protecting Fort Maginot will consider himself lucky if he gets a hot shower sometime this week.

Jihad Joe was earning his combat honors in the new American embassy, a modest endeavor said to cost some $700,000,000 dollars. At that price it ought to have restrooms, unlike the proposed Amtrak railroad stop in Beaumont, Texas.

$700 million dollars. For an embassy. In Iraq. Has anyone asked why?

Whatever business is being transacted in Bagdad could surely be accomplished on a couple of floors rented from the Hilton or the Holiday Inn or something. Heck, General Eisenhower led the allied forces in Europe while living in a travel trailer. Does an ambassador need anything better?

When Saddamn took the long walk from a short rope there was much mockery about all his palaces, about how large and pretentious they were, and how much they cost the poor Iraqi people. And yet the ambassadors from our modest republic founded on the rocky shores of New England by sturdy Puritans now seem to expect to live as high on the camel as any supremeissimo generalissimo grandissimo beloved of Allah.

I don’t suppose there are any oil slicks in His Highness the Ambassador’s swimming pool.

Books in the ambassador’s library should include Bernard Fall’s Street Without Joy and Hell in a Small Place, Brian Farrell’s Defence and Fall of Singapore 1940-1942, Charles Morris’ Massacre of an Army, Michael Asher’s Khartoum, Tacitus’ Annals, Tim Saunders’ Fort Eban Emael 1940, and perhaps just one useful line from Kipling: “Here lies a fool who tried to hustle the East.”

$700 million for an embassy. I guess that means that the wounded and the shell-shocked are getting some really good treatment, then, eh?

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