I fell asleep with C-Span on my TV (works better than Ambien), and a copy of Harper’s Magazine on the table next to me, opened to Editor-In-Chief Lewis Lapham’s piece on the case for impeaching George W. Bush.
I began to dream.
I was at a cocktail party on the upper West Side of Manhattan with other journalists. They had all read my book. That’s how I know it was a dream.
I was drinking some wine and talking with Ellen Barkin (always in my dreams) who had been invited to the party by Cal Ripken (for some reason) when Lapham walked up to us and slapped me on the back saying, “Tom, I’ve never laughed as hard as when I read your book last night. I bought fifty of them to give to my staff.” (Did I mention that this is NOT a wet dream?)
I told him I loved his impeachment piece. He moved closer to me and said, “We have before us in the White House a thief who steals the country's good name and reputation for his private interest and personal use; a liar who seeks to instill in the American people a state of fear; a televangelist who engages the United States in a never-ending crusade against all the world's evil, a wastrel who squanders a vast sum of the nation's wealth on what turns out to be a recruiting drive certain to multiply the host of our enemies. In a word, a criminal—known to be armed and shown to be dangerous.”
I nodded.
But then he said, “Tom, I want you to come with me to the White House, Bush is resigning in twenty mintues.”
You don’t question time or travel in dreams so I said, “Love to, Lew.” (Do people call hm “Lew?”)
All at once we were standing in the same room where Nixon gave the farewell address to his staff on August 9, 1974, the day before my birthday. Lapham whispered, “Nice birthday present, huh?”
I chuckled and looked around the room.
It wasn’t only Bush’s resignation but a combination of Nixon’s and Bush’s. Cheney was still old. Rumsfeld was young but still pasty. Pat Buchannan was there and gave me a sharp punch to the kidney. Lapham had my back and told Buchanan he’d never be published in Harper’s again.
What a guy, that Lew.
There was one First Lady. I couldn’t tell which one she was but she had hair like Condi, lips like Pat, and the Xanax/Valium eyes of well, both Laura and Pat.
Henry Kissinger sidled up to me and said, “You know Tom, the President is a man awake in his own nightmare.” I said, “I know how he feels.”
As Jeff Gannon was giving Bob Woodward a lap dance, all the heads turned when a combination of Scott McLellan and Ron Ziegler walked in wearing a full nun’s habit and saying, “Ladies and gentlemen the Presidents of the United States.”
The Justices of the Supreme Court ushered him/them in singing “She's Lump, she's Lump. She's in my head. She’s Lump, she’s Lump. She might be dead”
I turned to Lapham and asked, “Were you ever into grunge?” He gave me a stern look and said, “Nah. I’m strictly old school rap. I used to wear a big watch around my neck at home.”
Bush/Nixon stood at a podium before a wall decorated, as with all his appearances, with a backdrop. This one read, “FTW” over a Harley-Davidson sheild. He had a five o’clock shadow. He stepped up to the mic, hunched his shoulders forward, looked around and said, “Who the hell are you people?”
From behind the curtain, a small voice said, “They work here, Mr. Presidents, they work for you.”
“Well, how the hell was I supposed to know, Turd Blossom,” he said, turning slightly to the left and behind him. “I never did too much work around here.” And then he laughed the Bush laugh, “Neh-neh-neh-neh.” There was never a Nixon laugh.
He turned to the crowd and said, “I think the record should show that this is one of those spontaneous things that we always arrange whenever the President comes in to speak, and it will be so reported in the press.” Then turning to me, he said, “Thanks for coming, Tom. You have to call it as you see it. But on our part, believe me, it is spontaneous. You believe me, don’cha?”
He turned away before I could answer and spread his arms out in that patented Bushian flex, started moving his neck and gave a “V” with both hands.
He continued, “You are here to say goodbye to us, and we don't have a good word for it in English -- the best is ah ravar, uh revere, oh reservoir, oh shit, whatever. Don’t have to worry about that stuff anymore, do I?” Harriet Miers, Condi and the two Bush daughters…or were they the Nixon daughters? They must have been the Bush daughters because I saw them chug the rest of their Jagers. All four of them held signs over their heads, one letter per sign, which collectively read, “L-O-L-Z.”
They squealed like they were in the audience at TRL.
Bush changed from wearing a gray business suit to wearing a white jumpsuit with a wide red belt and said, “Thankyaverrmush.”
Women screamed. Several fainted.
Instantly Bush was wearing a red-striped running outfit. He looked wistfully out to the crowd and said, “I look around here, and I see so many on this staff that, you know, I should have been by your offices and shaken hands, and I would love to have talked to you and found out how to run things around here but I just haven't given a shit. I mean you’ve gotten your share of the loot, haven’t you?”
John Stewart sat in the corner crying, bleeding from a bite in his neck administered by Michael Chertoff, who was standing nearby smiling and slowly licking his bloody lips.
At the podium, Bush was wearing a little boy’s private school uniform and beginning to cry. “Nobody will ever write a book, probably, about my mother. Jeb has the rights all tied up. My mother was a saint when she sobered up for about fifteen minutes in 1963 and apologized for locking me in up the basement for a month. And I think of her, two boys and how she taught us how to turn everything we touched to shit. Yes, she will have no books written about her, especially by you Lapham. Don’cha be going all new-cue-lar on me Lew,” he said with that patented Bush snicker.
At that moment, the real Nixon burst through the doors and said “Wait just a goddamned minute here. I may have been a lot of things but one thing I wasn’t was stupid. And I could pronounce the word nuclear for chrissake. New-clee-ar, you hear that you moron? Buchannan, are you responsible for this crap?”
Pat Buchannan spoke up, “No way, Mr President. In our day we were crooks but we knew how to run things. Let’s go kill a bottle of single malt and leave these amatures be.” They walked out hand in hand.
Bush continued, “Remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them. I guess they’re all winners then, cuz I hate their goddamned guts. But then I win too, don’t I?” Turning back to the curtain he whispered, “Don’t I Turd Blossom.”
“Get this over with, asshole,” came the reply
“And so, we leave with high hopes, in good spirit, and with deep pockets, and with very much gratefulness in our hearts for the amount of money we were able to spread around among our friends.
“I’d like to announce with great sadness that I’ve accepted the resignation of Vice President Dick Cheney”
Cheney wheeled around and shot Lapham in the neck, face and chest with his shotgun. “It’s all your fault, you commie bastard,” the now-former Vice President said with a belch.
“Nice shot, daddy,” Bush cried out, laughing.
He continued, “And so before I leave, as my last act as your President, I’d like to introduce your new President and Vice President. Please welcome The President of the United States Tom DeLay, and the Vice President of the United States, Katherine Harris.”
I woke up. When I regained my senses I thought, “whenever I think something can’t happen with these Republicans, something worse always does.”
I’m staying tuned.
And, thanks for buying my book, Lew. At least in my dream.
This also appears on huffingtonpost.com
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