The Angry Czeck

The other night, the journalistic resting home that is 60 Minutes aired a story concerning the video game Grand Theft Auto and its supposed link to a multiple murder in Alabama. Having had some experience with Grand Theft Auto, my wife and I invested fifteen minutes of our lives with Ed Bradley, who joins Harrison Ford in the Pantheon of Men Too Elderly to Wear an Earring.

As Bradley bravely exposed GTA’s violent nature to an innocent nation, Meghan shook her head and muttered, “Why would anybody play this game?”

“Because, it’s like, you’re really there, doing that stuff,” I said briskly, as I watched a college kid on TV demonstrating a crimson potpourri of mass cop killings and sniper headshots.

“Why is that fun?” she said darkly.

Normally, I’d have delivered a well-crafted response like “Grand Theft Auto’s unique first-person roll play allows humanity to temporary put aside the unnatural shackles of civilization created by more than 200 years of feminist psycho-jargon.” But instead, the Angry Czeck was uncharacteristically slack-jawed.

When my son was born, I was granted two weeks of paternity leave (courtesy of 200 years of feminist psycho-jargon). The first two-weeks of raising a child is much like the old Indian ritual where a teenage boy is stripped naked in the snow and thrown out of the tribe until he returns with an eagle’s feather. It’s a rough two weeks, but upon its conclusion, you’re a man. I spent the odd hours of Introductory Fatherhood playing Grand Theft Auto, Vice City.

On the surface, the game play is horrendously mundane. You walk around. You find a car. You spend a great deal of time learning to drive the car without rolling into the river. But the mundane aspect of GTA quickly becomes its strength. I mean, after all, what’s more interesting? Changing a runny diaper at 3 a.m.? Or cold-cocking a pedestrian for his pocket change? Pretty soon, it’s four in the morning and your cruising the streets of Vice City without any agenda. Just cruising, baby. You get extra points for running over civilians and the avoiding the subsequent cop chase.

Eventually, the game play picks up. You’re assigned little missions from local thugs with more street cred than you. Like picking up hookers for the boss (extra points for scoring a quickie in route) or murdering punks who aren’t paying their bookies. For extra scratch, you might challenge some gang-bangers to a no-holds barred street race or beat a hooker to death with a baseball bat.

One of the finer aspects of Grand Theft Auto is its attention to detail. You feel the difference between driving a stolen fire truck and driving a stolen Corvette. Same with a sniper rifle or a bazooka or the pistol you lifted off a dead police officer. Too easily you ignore the brightly chromatic color scheme and flat dimensions of Vice City, and your brain begins to make unauthorized cut-and-pastes onto your memory. Once thrust back into the world of three dimensions, you pass by a school bus and think, “I stole one of those last week.” Then you vigorously shake your head and continue on to work, momentarily troubled that the membrane between fiction and reality had been punctured.

The weeks passed in Vice City, and I began to climb the underworld’s blood-slimed ladder. No longer was I a street thug eeking out a living boosting cars and planting bombs in police stations. I was a player, mingling with the Russian Mob, the Italian Mafia, the Japenese Yakuza, and a smattering of street gangs. I made more money killing one mobster than a school teacher makes her entire life. I tossed a Molitov cocktail at a college student and burned her to death, just for the kicks.

It wasn’t long (or was it too long?) that I began to realize that the video game had begun to color my moral judgment. Walking the streets during lunchtime, I’d follow people at random, wondering what it might be like to punch them in the back of the head. Kick them in the stomach. Relieve them of their money as they writhed in fear and agony. My eyes trolled across rooftops, seeking an ideal sniping location.

Meghan didn’t like the look on my face when I’d empty my Nine at a busy cross street. She’d ask me to turn off the PlayStation and come to bed. Just a minute, honey. I’m reloading.

Three weeks after my son’s birth, I had reached the criminal pinnacle of Vice City. I was hunched behind a convenient pile of bulletproof packing crates, an M-16 in hand and three rockets left in my bazooka. Overhead, a helicopter hovered, taking pot shots at me with a heavy machine gun. The kind of gun that takes out tanks and school children. It had already killed me a dozen times. Good thing thirteen was my lucky number. Calmly, I waited for the chopper to make a pass. I stepped out from behind by sanctuary, aimed my bazooka and shot that bastard out of the sky. All my enemies were dead. I was Lord of Vice City.

Several nights later, well past midnight, sitting in a rocking chair and feeding my infant son, I’d think about that day when, after I’d messily taken out the head of the Vice City Yakuza mob, I climbed up to the highest point of Vice City, taken out my sniper rifle, and practiced my head shots. Bagged nine civvies before the cops even knew what was happening. Bagged a couple of them before I had to scram. That was a good day.

(Voice believed to be) JACKSON, MICHAEL: Hey, you guys have enough Jesus Juice? Sure? Just checking, ya’ll. I know tonight’s a school night, but I appreciate your parents dropping you off. I haven’t had a Pillow Party in two months! Feel my pajamas. So soft. Feel them right…here.

Everybody is wondering how I got off. Somebody will play the race card, and I’ll nod silently, but laugh my ass off in private. Man, when was the last time I was black? 1982? Shit. LaToya, now she’s black. Jermaine is black. Me, I’m so white I’m nearly green. Tell you the truth, boys and boys, it ain’t much of a secret.

Man, they let OJ go! OJ! The jurors forgot OJ’s history for smacking his wife around. Disregarded all the physical evidence tying Simpson to the murder. Forgave him for Naked Gun 2 ½. Looked past his insane comments and the famous Bronco chase. You can’t put a guy who ran 2000 yards in one season in jail. Just can’t! Case closed. OJ led the way for us psychotic celebrities. OJ has a son, too. I have a picture of him that I keep in my underwear drawer.

“Now, if I killed Nicole…wouldn’t it be out of love?”

Man, they let Robert Blake loose! Robert Blake! Loved that guy’s work in Hell Town. He played a Woody-driving priest that solved crime. Can’t believe it only lasted one season. Blake was the only guy who could have killed his wife, and the jury let him go. True, the evidence was circumstantial, but it was a substantial kind of circumstantial, if you know what I’m saying. If you forgot, here’s the story. Bob and wife leave restaurant. Bob realizes he left his PISTOL in the restaurant. Bob goes to retrieve said pistol. Comes back to find wife shot dead in cold blood. Witnesses claim that Bob’s effort to appear distraught is less than convincing. Later, two stuntmen tell police that Bob tried to hire them to kill his wife. Verdict: Not Guilty. You can’t put a Little Rascal in jail. Unless he’s Buckwheat.

So why the hell would a jury convict me? I have more cash in my cosmetic case then OJ and Robert Blake will see their entire lives. Remember Thriller? When I was producing Thriller, I wasn’t making an album. I was printing a Get Out Of Jail For Molesting Boys Free Card. Shit, Billy Jean alone gets me out of speeding tickets.

Man, when they release Phil Spectre next year, it will be official. Man, you can’t imprison the dude who brought us The Wall of Sound just for shooting Barbarian Queen’s head off. Hey, it was an accident. And remember, rich people don’t go to jail. Prison is for poor people. Unless it’s Country Club prison, like Martha Stewart. People have no problem tossing rich people in country club prison. Instead of insider trading, Martha should have shot a fireman. Jurors forgive shooting firemen quicker than earning a few quick K on an insider’s trading tip. That’s how our court system works, my friends. When you’re ass poor, the county assigns you an ass public defender with no budget. You don’t get no defense team. Ain’t no “war room” set up for your ass. I guarantee you ain’t drawing no guy named ‘Shapiro’ from the public defense pool. You won’t see no 3-D computer model demonstrating how you could have possibly been in Chicago teeing off with the mayor during the time of the murder. Nope. You get a stuttering dude in a J.C. Penny blazer with three payments left on it.

What? The Menendez Brothers? Yeah, they went to jail. They’re in jail because they’re stupid. Dumb as a sack of Quikrete. I mean, who whacks their parents with shotguns, then buys Rolex watches the very next week? Still, it took two trials to send their pretty butts to jail. Two!

Besides, a guilty verdict would suggest that I am not entitled to fondling young boys. People understand that when you are wealthy, you have earned special rights. I gave the world “Beat It.” My reward is an unlimited supply of under-twelves. And if you don’t like it, well, here’s a new wristwatch. Here’s a new car. Ask me how many parents let me feel-up their sons because I bought them a new ski boat? It’s a good trade. I mean, have you guys ever had your paws on ten-year-old boy ass? Nice, right? Right? What? You’re gonna say that’s not normal? You’re just fucking with me. Later, I mean.

Yeah, my million dollar lawyers made the prosecution look like chumps. But it wasn’t like the state had an airtight case to begin with. Man, let’s look at the facts! There’s not video tape of me touching kids. At least, no tape I didn’t destroy. All the prosecution has is a finger-snapping grifter with a history of shaking people down as the ‘victim’s’ mother. You have a DA with a publicized obsession for putting me in prison. You have a kid who can’t remember how many times I was supposed to have enjoyed my weird jollies. Best of all, I got McCauley Culkin saying I ain’t never touched him.

HA! I can’t count how many times I snuggled up to a naked (and drunk) McCauley Culkin! Hee-Hee! That was some sweet ass! Tell me you never grabbed McCauley’s ass when you were here! What? That ain’t normal? Screw you! Later, I mean.

Hey, did anybody notice how dumb my jury was? One of the charges was serving alcoholic drinks to a minor. Man, of all the charges they had on me, you’d think that at least that one would stick. Nope. One juror let me off because she didn’t like the ‘victim’s’ mother shaking her finger. “Don’t snap your fingers at me, lady!” was what she said on Larry King. Teach that mother for snapping, girlfriend! Another juror said he “hopes I don’t sleep with children anymore.” (As if.) Another said she believes I had molested boys…I remember her. She was pretty perceptive.

Thank you, Jury! I invite all your children to spend the evening at Neverland.

Hey, ya’ll. You guys look sleepy. Hee-heee! Take off your pants.

I was never gonna go to jail, and deep down, everybody knew it. I’m the King of Pop. I married a Presley. Pepsi nearly set my head on fire. I paid my dues. Of course, there will be outrage. People will point to me and call me a pedophile. They’ll claim I’ve been set free to rape little boys. Here’s the ironic part: I don’t even have a penis. Nope. Lost it in 1995. Used it to build me a brand new nose. I don’t miss it much.

Couple weeks ago, my brother and I stopped at a gas station featuring “Sudden Service.” I thought that meant that, while you’re pumping gas, an attendant aspirates out of no where with a cup of steaming hot coffee. But in actuality, it meant unintelligible mumbling and receiving no eye contact when presenting a check card at the counter.

Read a couple weeks ago that military women are barred from seeing front line combat. This has been policy for ten years and counting. But is this what a female signs up for when she joins the military? To become part of a supply chain, or to pose in pictures featuring a stack of naked Iraqi “dead-enders?” How does the military recruiter sell that? Does he use a separate brochure? “Look, this can be you right here, loading a truck full of delousing powder to be used at the front!” I’d be like, “So when do I get to fly an Apache?” Heh, heh. Don’t worry your pretty little head, young lady. Somebody’s got to do the cooking and cleaning at HQ, you know!

A picture not included in the military’s female recruitment brochure.

Learned the secret identity to Deep Throat this week. Yawn. Compared to today’s racy menu of abuses and scandal, a little breaking-and-entering seems downright patriotic. You think Rumsfield and Cheney would let their mouthpiece go down over a simple case of theft? Forget it. Everyone remotely involved would be shipped to Cuba for “indefinite detention.” Woodward’s bullet-ridden body would have been discovered stuffed in the trunk of a Dodge Duster if Cheney had been in charge.

How long must the public exile be before Memphian’s reelect disgraced state congressman John Ford back into office? One year? Two? Just wondering.

Alone in Knoxville, I decided to take in a viewing of Star Wars Part 6. That’s when you know your life is in disarray. When you are watching Star Wars 6 all by yourself. I ended up sitting between a teenage couple who clearly wanted to make-out, and some burly dude babysitting four kids. The Burly Dude was the worst. He had a friend sitting a row ahead of him. Before the movie started, the Burly Dude was bragging to his friend how that, during an airing of Lord of the Rings, he told some people to “shut up” because they were “ruining his movie.” Real tough guy. So guess who talked during the entire two hours of Star Wars 6? You guessed it.

The Angry Czeck’s assessment of Star Wars 6? When I was twelve years old, my grandfather asked me which movie I wanted to watch for the afternoon. Two blockbusters were playing at the time: Return of the Jedi and Superman III. With only a brief deliberation, I opted for Superman III. So what did the Angry Czeck think about the latest Lucas effort? Can’t wait for the Bryan Singer directed Superman.

The Angry Czeck is the only person in the whole wide world who is responsible for an automobile accident. It sounds impossible, but it’s true. I’ve never met a person, other than myself, who owns up to causing a car wreck. Me, I caused a car wreck by running a red light. I’ve met people who admit to being involved in an accident, but it was always the other guy’s fault. For once, I’d like to hear somebody say, “Man, I totally fucked up and rear-ended an old lady because I was too busy flipping the pages of my new Penthouse magazine instead of paying attention to the road.” But if you took a poll around the office, I guarantee that nobody has ever been at fault for an automobile accident but the Angry Czeck. Which explains my atmospheric insurance rates.

Speaking of Penthouse, there’s a magazine that’s hit the skids. I found more satisfaction from an episode of Joey than I did from the June issue of Penthouse. And it ain’t exactly easy to buy Penthouse in Knoxville, either. I had to drive a considerable distance to the world’s loneliest Books-a-Million to make my shameful purchase. I grabbed the issue from the kiosk like a Memphis politician selecting his favorite flavor of crack cocaine. To legitimize my purchase, I swiped the world’s worst sporting magazine, The Sporting News, and put it discreetly on top of my Penthouse, as if to say, “I’m really here to buy the totally uninformative brand of reporting only the Sporting News would dare charge $5 for. This Penthouse? Heh. Heh. Good Artie Lange interview, I heard.” Hoping to find a check-out guy as seedy as myself up front, I instead discovered a pretty teenage girl manning the only open register. What a nice example I set for her. Now she probably thinks all 30-year-old men are lonely and gross. She’ll tell all her friends about the slightly overweight guy who tried to disguise his porn purchase with a Sporting News. I’ve ruined it for everyone. I paid for my pornography with the layer of shame administered to my fragile psyche added free of charge. But at least I had my Penthouse! A magazine I hadn’t paid for with my own money since 1994. Then I discovered that the Penthouse of the early 90’s is not the Penthouse being published today. Man, you used to be able to depend on Penthouse for a little girl-on-girl action, at least. (Remember those “art-y” Vanessa Williams photos?) Not anymore! Just a few tired spreads of dopey eyed girls you don’t necessarily want to see tastefully naked, let alone stretched out on a shag carpet. One girl looked like someone recruited from the same gas station where I received Sudden Service. Somewhere along the way, the immortal Bob Guccione totally lost his testicles and decided to remake Penthouse, the only magazine with the stones to challenge Playboy, into a less entertaining version of Maxim. Now I’m minus six bucks and still coping with my shame.

The other week, I found this in my bathtub:

I thought somebody had left their mustache in my shower, but it turned out to be a house centipede. In case you’re too much of a pussy to thoroughly examine the picture I provided, allow me to offer a description: It has a long, flat body with about a billion daddy-longlegs…er…legs attached to it. As I nervously completed my not-so-sensual shower, I could hear it breathe, “Quaid….open your mind…” The house centipede is to Knoxville what cockroaches and crooked politicians are to Memphis. One person described a house centipede as “fast.” I’m waiting to wake up one night with one in my mouth.

Upon rejecting the EU Constitution and throwing the whole of Europe in an uproar, it’s nice to see France fucking up other country’s shit, and not just ours. Viva France.

Think Bush breathed a sigh of relief when Tony Blair was re-elected as British Prime Minister? It’s like in Lionheart, when Van Damme is getting his ass k
icked by Atilla, and Joshua confesses that he had placed all their money on Atilla to win. And Van Damme starts shaking his cheeks, and you could tell Joshua felt real bad for fucking up Van Dammne’s shit, so he looks extra happy when Van Damme finds the lion within to overcome his broken ribs and beat Attilla to a bloody douche bottle. I’m sure Bush called after Blair’s victory and said, “Sorry about that WMD thing, Tony. Ooops. I knew you’d win anyway.”

“We’re all gonna die.”

That’s what Billy the Indian Dude tells Carl Weathers in the Oscar snubbed Predator. It’s the only line in the movie I remember. When some mundane calamity befalls the office, I wait for that brief pause, and say, “We’re all gonna die.” It’s always good for a chuckle.

A nervous chuckle. Chief Billy isn’t exactly Voltaire, but the big man speaks truth. We’re all gonna die, and the Angry Czeck is pissed off that nobody’s doing anything about it.

Why isn’t the Bush Administration pouring every resource into this? Shouldn’t Alan Greenspan be assigned to the project? We’re worried about social security? The deficit? Terrorism? Shit, we’re all gonna die! All the people on Earth right now? Say “adios.” In 100 years, they’re all gone. Replaced by other people who are all gonna die.

We’re all gonna die, and nobody is even talking about it. The Angry Czeck has an angry life insurance policy, but deep down, I don’t think it’ll ever be redeemed. I’m betting that in some volcano lair, a government-funded scientist is brewing the necessary formula to stick a stopper in death. For rich people. I plan to be rich. That’s what keeps me from writing a Will.

We’re all gonna die, and I just ought to get used to it. But fuck that. Why should I just bend over and accept it, like everyone else? Death is the great equalizer, but I’m smarter than everyone else. Shouldn’t I be able to find a way to beat this thing?

Even a crappy magazine like Maxim addresses death better than our most venerated thinkers. Maxim recently published a list of 100 Worst Ideas of all Time. I thought Number One would be Hacky Sack or the Frisbee. But Maxim said the worst idea is the world for all time is death. Damn right! Death is a stupid idea.

On my way between Memphis and Knoxville, I was assaulted with a multi-fonts message on a highway billboard: Where will YOU spend eternity? How come the only people thinking about death are the nuts? The guys that drove passenger planes into skyscrapers were promised a hundred virgins. I’m not sure how long it takes to go through 100 virgins. I’m no Wilt Chamberlain, but it wouldn’t take the Angry Czeck an eternity before and I had 100 women wondering why I never call anymore. Even the guys taking death seriously aren’t accurately projecting the logistics

Religious people try to look at peace when confronted with death. They cast their eyes in the sky and start talking like Mister Spock. They speak of eternal peace and joy. Listen, fool, you don’t know! What happens when we go to Heaven? We play cards with Moses? Play harps? You don’t know! And they know they don’t know, too. You can see panic in the eyes. Nobody has ever come back from Heaven and said, “Man they got a pool up there!”

No! Wait! Shouldn’t Heaven be cool?

We’re all gonna die, and deep down, we’re all wondering how. Croaking of cancer or a heart attack are always the leading candidates. Yawn! I read a story about an old guy who was diagnosed with inoperable cancer. Instead of waiting around for his first injection of morphine, he decided to hell with it. First, he convinced some guy to take him for a ride in a bi-plane. Then, once they reached a significant height, the old guy just leaped out of the plane! The best part was, the old guy crashes through some high-tension wires and splattered into a backyard before a family grilling burgers. What a way to go! Those kids will always remember the old dude diving out of the plane. Here are some more cool ways to go:

1. Stepping in front of a freshly fired cannonball
2. Lightsaber to the eye
3. Leaping a flaming motorcycle into the Grand Canyon
4. Getting hurled into outer space
5. Partying too hard with Kid Rock
6. Too much sex
7. Shot down (dowwwwwwn) in a blaze of glory
8. Saving the planet from a meteor
9. Jumping into the sun
10. Lightening

I once read about a man who cut his own head off with a chainsaw. The local police had to spend money conducting a test to determine whether or not cutting your own head off with a chainsaw was possible. The test confirmed it so.

One of my favorite movie death scenes is found in The War Wagon. Suspending all logic, John Wayne and Kirk Douglas convince the chief of an Indian tribe to drink an entire bottle of nitroglycerine – to explosive effect! Now you’re going to tell the Angry Czeck that Terms of Endearment had a better death scene? Fool! The War Wagon!

We’re all gonna die, and there is no good way to go. The worst part is, we as a civilization are getting lousier and lousier at it. Used to be when you died, somebody carved you a big stone statue that would last hundreds of years. Now we accept a quick cremation and a tiny metal marker than will fade before your wife starts dating again. Fuck that, I say. When the Angry Czeck goes, I want a big granite statue of a man with a shield riding a lion. Shit, I don’t even care if the guy looks like me.

Several years ago, when the Angry Czeck was too young to worry about trimming all the hair in his ear, I worked at a Religious Lumber Yard. Everybody but me and another guy were related to the owner, who doubled as a preacher for a non-denominational church. Between lugging sacks of cement, one of the guys gave me a pretty neat explanation for death. God uses Earth as a kind of recruitment center for His divine army, was how the theory went. From this earthly coil, the Lord accepts the most devout into his regiment for a Holy War to be fought at some apocalyptic future. God can do anything, but He still needs an army. I never learned exactly what this army was supposed to fight.

Science has no real understanding of death either. On the atomic level, we are all made of the same atoms that create mediocre entities like tuna fish and Bryan Adams. Yet, once we back away to the more familiar macro-level, we are all unique and capable of performing amazing feats. Back to the micro-level, once we pass away, our atoms simply disband and disperse into the cosmos, where some atoms may become elements of oxygen, and others become ingredients to new people. But the atoms never stop vibrating. They are still atoms, the most basic of the basic building blocks of reality. Yet, all things pass away from reality, whether you are a plant or Michael Jackson. It’s weird.

Shakespeare and Marlowe do a nice job of contemplating death (Hamlet and Faust being two of literature’s most penetrating explorations into the void). Today’s entertainment seems more bent on the quantity of the body count rather than really exploring the meaning of death. Wouldn’t it be nice if Vin Diesel sneered, “From this mortal coil, I forthwith remove you!” before machine-gunning a truckload of thugs? No?
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br />Nobody wants to die, yet life is cheaper than ever. I recently caught a showing of Revenge of the Sith. Thanks to a the two-liter portion of Diet Coke I drank during the film’s two hour run time, my bladder nearly exploded like a Death Star. Jitter-bugging in line at the bathroom, I found myself behind a father and son. The boy looked to be about four years old. The father, a Knoxville version of Hamlet, was vocally contemplating the film’s tragic conclusion. “Yep. Obi-Wan should have finished the job while he had the chance,” he mused, referring to Obi-Wan’s decision to leave Anakin to die. What a nice lesson for a four-year-old. Killing is the solution, son. Don’t think twice about it.

Much like life, this post has to end somewhere, and as the Creator of this Blog, the Angry Czeck submits that it end with this paragraph. It’s okay. It’s going to a better place. One where sentence structure is always perfect and there is never need for a spell check. A happy place where verbs get along with adjectives and nobody dangles a modifier. May it rest in peace.

I recently read that John Edwards is quietly engineering his platform for the 2008 Presidential Race. When Edwards ran in 2004, I embraced him as the future of the Democratic Party, even though I knew very little about the one-term Senator from…er…from somewhere.

Edwards doesn’t need a platform. He doesn’t even need strategy. All Edwards must do is remind forgetful Americans that the eight years of W rule has been wrought with lies, quarter-truths, misconceptions, under-estimations, and gross displays of negligence. And he should skewer his Republican counterparts with their own ill-conceived words.

If the Angry Czeck were like most Democrats, there would be no real solution after the before mentioned insight — just a pompous pronouncement, followed by the predictable lamentations. Fortunately, The Angry Czeck is equal parts lamentation and solution! What follows are actually quotes that Americans should never forget, and that Edwards should exploit:

“WMD”
The Angry Czeck suspects that “WMD” was invented for Bush in response to the President’s refusal to properly pronounce ‘nuclear.’ (By the way, when did we become such grammar snobs, anyway? Who hasn’t mispronounced nuclear? The Angry Czeck recommends that we all let this go.) This tidy display of phonetic problem-solving was most effective in spearheading the war effort. Because there was no evidence of nuclear warheads in Iraq, the Bush Administration had to think of something for the media to latch onto. Before W’s pitch to make Iraq the New Puerto Rico, nobody had ever heard of a WMD. But the nicely compact descriptor made us rethink. Suddenly, the threat of WMDs became THE MAIN REASON THE AMERICAN PUBLIC SIGNED OFF ON INVADING IRAQ. (Defenders of the war will maintain that WMDs was never the main objective, but securing the world against terrorism was. That’s complete bullshit worthy of a separate post.) Any time a doubt was raised, Rumsfield only had to grunt “WMD” (and sometimes “unpatriotic” for good measure) to cement the chastised media silence W prefers. Of course, there were no WMDs. It was a little embarrassing, like breaking down a door thinking you’ll find your wife sleeping with the plumber, only to rediscover the closet where you had stored all your girl-on-girl porn instead. Fortunately, a patsy in the form of CIA Director George Tenet was available to take the fall.

“The violence in Iraq is caused by a small group of dead-enders.”
Every now and again, Rumsfield’s brilliant assessment of the insurgency in Iraq is mentioned by the more bitter members of the media, but not enough. The public likes the cranky Donald Rumsfield because he “tells it like it is!” But Rummy’s “Shut-Your-Pansy-Anti-American-Mouths” response to the rising body count should have sealed his credentials as a complete liar. Nope. Americans love a curmudgeon who knows how to put the press in their place. The Battle of Fullujah or the most recent firefight (Operation Matador) wasn’t enough to convince some people that an organized rebellion is currently operating inside Iraq. And disbanding the trained Iraqi army only supplied recruits. But don’t worry, American GIs. It’s just a loose, drunken group of unemployed Syrians who are systematically suicide bombing Iraqi police recruitment stations and military checkpoints. Just a bunch of losers with too much spare TNT to detonate. We won’t even need body bags in a couple months. You just watch.

“Bring them on.”
The Mighty W chalked-up this carelessly brazen statement as an attempt at a morale boost for our fighting men and women. Nice boost. For the insurgents, whose ultra-macho culture can’t dismiss a direct challenge from the mastermind of the infidels. I’m sure US soldiers appreciated W shaking the hornet’s next for them. The Angry Czeck enjoyed the White House PR spin: it’s better for our well-equipped army to handle the terrorists (i.e. dead-enders) than fighting them on our Homeland (‘Homeland?’ When did we start speaking like characters from Dr. Zhivago?) But Bush must know what he’s doing. After all, he fought in Vietnam, so he understands exactly what it’s like to be shot at.

“Slam dunk”
Ascribed to the insanely loyal George Tenet, the W Administration can’t watch the NBA playoffs without cringing at the commentary. They should be cringing from kicks to the nuts administered by the Angry Czeck. The case for attacking Iraq was less a slam-dunk and more like a behind-the-back pot shot from the rafters. Every time a Republican starts talking about any policy, Edwards should calmly reply, “Really? Would you say obliterating social security is…a slam dunk?”

“The people of Iraq will welcome the United States as liberators.”
Possibly realizing that the American public would not take being lied to about WMDs very well, the White House immediately concocted an amazing fiction in which American soldiers would be treated like heroes upon liberating Iraq. Sure, the Iraqi nuclear program might have consisted of a Yard Jart set and a diagram of Ralph Nadar’s pants, but at least we’re LIBERATORS. Only, somebody forgot to tell the Iraqis. Some people still can’t understand how the brilliant Cheney and Rummy could be so far off the mark, but I’ll explain. I live in Knoxville. Let’s say there was some guy in Knoxville who randomly cold cocked people for ten years. Suddenly, a guy from Nashville appears and whips the Knoxville bully. We’re all glad that the bully is gone, but it’s a little unnerving to see a guy from Knoxville so easily thrashed by a guy from Nashville. In addition, now the Nashville guy wants a parade, and a key to the city that just happens to double as the key to the treasury. Pretty soon, the Nashville guy is knocking up our daughters, and just lately, randomly cold cocking people. Eventually, you’re like “If we’re going to have a bully seducing our women, at least let’s have one from Knoxville.” Hopefully, that explains everything.

“Mission Accomplished”
This is a memo The Angry Czeck recently intercepted from the White House: “Dear Navy. Thanks, Navy, for risking your life for my baseless war. And thanks for letting me strut around your flight deck wearing a military outfit while real soldiers were getting blasted by a small group of dead-enders. And by the way, fuck you for putting of the sign we told you to put up. Don’t tell Newsweek that the sign was actually printed by
the White House printing press. That would make it seem like it was authorized by the White House. Signed, W”

“Being the President is hard. It’s hard.”
W’s strategy of not preparing for a nationally televised debate unearthed this gem when he was confronted with some of his more questionable policies towards Iraq. What a condescending prick. Did he think that the American public would sympathize? Did he feel that you and I would pity the most vacation-taking president in US history? Hey, moron, we voted for you because the job is hard. Not so you could pass the buck to George Tenet. Not so you can shrug your shoulders every time a US soldier is killed, or thumb your nose at another UN report that underscores the galling lack of any evidence to mount such a destructive attack. Yeah, it’s hard. So is patrolling the streets of Bahgdad after your Commander in Chief has invited gun-toting, suicide bombers to “bring it on.” Not that you’d know, asshole. You’re too busy trying to recreate photo ops that Ronald Regan did better than you 20 years ago. Let’s face it, W. You ain’t got the chops for the job. You never did. You never will. And we’re suffering.

“Go fuck yourself.”
Actually, I kind of liked that one. Well said. You go, Dick Cheney. That will be the Angry Czeck’s response when drafted by the military.