Political Satire: Having trouble surviving these times? You’re not alone. Join us in columnist John F. Di Leo’s exploration of an alternate universe, where we imagine the impossible:
Joe Buckstop, an aging, corrupt old fool, somehow becomes president in his basement, and every night, an aide has to bring him his soup and discuss the events of the day as he prepares to receive his nightly meds…
Dateline, February 22. Begin Transcript:
“Good evening, boss! What’s new?”
“New? What should be new?”
“I don’t know, you just have the most exciting job in the world, I figure there must be something new every day, right, sir?”
“I really haven’t the faintest idea of what you’re talking about, young man. Nothing ever happens here. Nothing in the least ever happens.”
“Gee, sorry to hear that… well, sir, we have some crab soup, that’ll be a change!”
“Crab soup? What about it?”
“It’s a Martha Washington recipe, sir. A modern take on it, I guess. I don’t know, they said the original was too sweet, so they took out the sherry and added lemon or something like that…. but it’s basically what Martha Washington used to serve, sir! Isn’t that cool?”
“Why?”
“Well, because it’s a 250 year old recipe. Isn’t that neat, sir?”
“Come on, Man! Doesn’t food spoil when it’s that old?”
“Ummm, the food isn’t that old, sir. The recipe is. Old recipe, new ingredients, sir.”
“Oh. I don’t understand.”
“It’s another Mount Vernon Recipe, sir. Updated, sir.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s George Washington’s Birthday, sir.”
“Whose?”
“George Washington’s, sir.”
“Never met him. Should I send him a card?”
“Uh, no sir, he’s dead, sir.”
“Oh, well then, forget the card.”
“No, sir, I mean, it’s the holiday. His birthday, sir. George Washington’s birthday.”
“Oh, was he important?”
“The first President, sir? Remember? Commander of the Continental Army, sir? President of the Constitutional Convention, sir?”
“Oh? Oh. OH! Yes, yes, now I remember. Sorry there. I, uh, I was distracted. Never mind. Busy day.”
“Oh, yes, well, I figured it was something like that, sir.”
“You had an idea for me about that place, last week, didn’t you, son?”
“Yes, sir! Glad you remembered, sir!”
“What was it?”
“Uh, that perhaps it would be cool if you held a cabinet meeting at Mount Vernon, sir. Have lunch in the Mount Vernon restaurant, sir. It would be a nice mark of respect, sir.”
“For what?”
“Well, you know, sir, for … General Washington, and the Founding Fathers, and the Constitution, and… well, you know, respect for the Founding era, sir. Wouldn’t that be nice, sir?”
“Oh, no, I don’t think so. people wouldn’t like that.”
“Why not, sir?”
“Old dead white males, you know.”
“So? They founded the country, sir!”
“Better left forgotten.”
“But, sir… Jefferson and Madison founded the Democratic party, sir!”
“They did?”
“Well, sure, sir. During the Washington administration. They worked together to build the nation’s first political party, sir. They hired a journalist as a French translator for Jefferson at the State department…”
“I thought Jefferson spoke French. Wasn’t he fluent in French?”
“Well, yes, sir… that’s why they hired the guy as a translator.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Since he wasn’t needed, he could run an anti-administration newspaper for them in his free time, since he was basically the first ghost payroller in the US Government, sir.”
“Good gracious, you’re right! They WERE Democrats!”
“Hey, by the way, sir, there’s been some news lately about your campaign team and colleagues working with Iran last year, sir, and I was wondering how that worked, sir.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, sir, you know how we have sanctions against Iran, right?”
“Sure.”
“Well, don’t the sanctions forbid private political overtures from an opposition campaign, sir?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Well, sir, as you recall, sir, I’m taking classes for my law degree, and I’m really fuzzy on how sanctions work, sir. It’s this whole business of the U.S. Export Controls. They really confuse me, sir.”
“You’re not alone.”
“Thank you, sir, that’s reassuring. So, as far as I can tell, sir, there are lots of different rules, scattered over different departments – Commerce, Treasury, State, Defense – and they all have different ways of banning Americans from sharing goods, funds, information, technology, practically anything of value at all, with Iran, right, sir?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“Well, so then, how could your team have been able to work with Iran during the Trump presidency? You weren’t in office yet, so you didn’t have the diplomatic thing going… I’m just trying to understand, sir. You know, for my law degree, sir.”
“Oh, well, uh, I’m not an expert on those rules, you know…”
“Understood, sir…”
“But basically, those laws don’t apply to me.”
“Huh? Why not, sir?”
“Well, they’d limit me. And I had a campaign to win. So, they didn’t apply.”
“I don’t understand, sir. The restrictions on Iran apply to everyone else, right?”
“Well, sure. but I don’t follow that stuff.”
“Why not, sir?”
“You ever read Crime and Punishment?”
“Yes sir, in school.”
“Well, so did I. And some of us, well, laws just can’t apply to some of us. They’re too restrictive. We have stuff to do. Things to accomplish. So these laws don’t apply to us.”
“Oh. Raskolnikov, sir.”
“Huh? Oh, yeah. That was the name. Like with Raskolnikov. We have things to get done. We can’t let these stupid things stand in our way.”
“Uh, how much of Crime and Punishment did you read, sir?”
“What?”
“How much of the book?”
“Well, I don’t know. It was a long time ago. And I was busy. Let’s see, I don’t know, it was a big book, now that I think about it. And I was in Scranton, you know. Did you know I went to school in Scranton?”
“Yes, sir, I think you’d mentioned it once or twice, sir.”
“So, um, yeah, I read Crime and Punishment back then.”
“And how far did you get, sir? Did you get to the end, sir?”
“Oh, Come On, Man! That was a huge book! I don’t know, maybe I read the first few chapters? Maybe a quarter in? Enough to get the gist, you know. Enough to get the point.”
“Sir, I have a feeling it has a different point if you read the whole book, sir.”
“Really?”
“Yes sir. I’d recommend you read all the way to the end, sir.”
“Oh, no, I can’t stay awake that long these days. But you know what I WOULD like…. Can I have some more soup?”
“Ah. Well. Yes, sir, have some more soup, sir.”
“Yippee!”
“And umm, sir… you might want to stay away from horse-drawn carriages, sir.”
Copyright 2021 John F Di Leo
Excerpted with permission from “Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volume One,” from Free State West Publishing, available in paperback or eBook exclusively on Amazon.
John F. Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based international transportation and trade compliance professional and consultant. A onetime Milwaukee County Republican Party chairman, he has been writing a regular column for Illinois Review since 2009. His book on vote fraud (The Tales of Little Pavel) and his political satires on the current administration (Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volumes I and II) are available only on Amazon
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