Barney is probably a better cuddler, tho.

JOE PRESS SECRETARY

This crowd of potential Significant Others think this guy's administration is going to cut taxes, wipe out the deficit, make everybody safe and healthy, and conquer first the world and then the Solar System, all six planets and the Galilean moons.

He's lying.

"Ari, you get more fan mail proposing marriage than any man alive."

"Tell me something I don't know."

"All of them are GUYS!"

Remember, the Ayatollahs Ashcroft and Santorum are
both married men...

And which women would these be?

Meanwhile, the fan site at www.probush.com claims all posts there are government-monitored. Makes one wonder--given how not-real the posts sound--just where this site comes from.

I also just realized that I would have to revise my mental lists. #1 at the top of the list of "That Which Must Not Be" used to be "Siskel and Ebert Slash" but I'm now thinking that "Loveletters to Ari" or worse yet "Ari Fleischer Meets Mary Sue" fiction would be even worse.

NO NO NO!! MAKE IT STOP

MKK

(And in an interesting coincidence for Making Light & Electrolite), Domains by Proxy's address is on 15111 N Hayden Road.)

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm in the middle of a new piece of Ari Fleischer/Rick Santorum/Dawson's Creek slash ...

(Please note this is not a Godwin's Law instance, because Nazi war criminals are just being used as an example of uniformly bad things.)

But we still remember Ari.

Poke. Poke. Poke.

The Don Cherry (without the temper and bad clothes) of the U.S.

Well, okay... maybe you'd have to be Canadian for that to dispel belief. If Don Cherry doesn't help, try comparing

* the long, long, long "Traitors List" page with photos of about 150 celebrities opposing current US policy (although I notice they have omitted the Pope, but I suppose he's not American),

with

* the "Patriot List" page listing earnest volunteer citizen-suck - er, I mean, patriots who have signed up, with its scant six celebrity Honorary Patriots at the bottom... Michael Savage, Michael Smerconish, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh.

Or the quotes:

IF YOU DO NOT SUPPORT OUR PRESIDENT'S DECISIONS YOU ARE A TRAITOR TO OUR COUNTRY!

Get to know your traitor!

PATRIOT, n. One who loves his country, and zealously supports its authority

IF YOU DO SUPPORT OUR PRESIDENTS DECISIONS YOU ARE A PATRIOT TO OUR COUNTRY!

I mean, come on. This has to be parody. Doesn't it?

My little brain shorted out at the idea of Ari/Rummy slash, and all I was left with was:

"The lies you are hearing on television you are hearing over, and over, and over, and it92s the same voice of the same person quoted in some sound bite speaking a lie, and you hear it 20 times, and you think, 'My goodness, are there that many lies? Is it possible that there are that many lies in the whole country?'"

Mm. Anyway, since what we can see supports a 'dry satire' hypothesis at least as well as the 'sincere and extreme idiocy' interpretation, in the absence of further evidence, I get to choose what to believe. It's a lot more enjoyable as a folly trap.

Moreover, suppose I'm wrong and the designer meant every heartfelt word. In that case, isn't it much more satisfying, to misinterpret such an intention?

Get to know your traitor!

...without thinking of Paranoia?

A traitor is an evil and malevolent human who has betrayed his friend The Computer and seeks to destroy The Computer, humanity, Alpha Complex and life as we know it. Traitors must be unmasked and destroyed.

All mutants are traitors. They are genetically imperfect. They have no place in utopia. They must be eliminated.

All members of secret societies are traitors. They belong to organizations not officially sanctioned by The Computer. They conspire against The Computer. They must be destroyed. The Computer is your friend. Trust the Computer.

By the way.. you are a mutant. And a member of a secret society.

Stay alert! Trust no-one! Keep your laser handy!

Though it's not quite as funny as it used to be, for some reason.

Haven't you seen any Three Stooges shorts?

The Administration are stuffed shirts of the sort that the Three Stooges would *take down* in the course of an adventure.

This is why I don't see any reason why we will ever need documentaries on the Bush Administration, seeing as how "Dick and Dubya Do America" has pretty much done the job for us.

Backtracking to Ari, we also have to consider the fans as being those who wouldn't actually have anything to do with him in real life. Back last year, I took a new job in Florida, and managed to snag a room with a gay couple. (Things were wonderful, even if I was one of the only straight guys in the neighborhood. The environment in the apt was equal parts "Will and Grace" and "Doctor Who".) The only time things didn't work out was when someone would plug in the "Absolutely Fabulous" DVD at a party, and someone would invariably announce "Hey, guess what? Paul was married to Edie Monsoon!"

(This part was true: my ex-wife was an absolute ringer for Edie Monsoon. Not Jennifer Saunders: the character. Physically and temperamentally, even down to being unable to leave the house during a fire because she had nothing to wear. You don't even want to know what her fortieth birthday was like.)

Naturally, this caused everyone to coo and gasp, cheering "Edie's great! I love Edie!" This cheerful state of affairs lasted, with many ribbings on why I'd leave such a wonderful person, until I said "Fine: YOU marry her." And you could hear air molecules banging into each other, it was so quiet. Tragedy is always humor when it happens to someone else, which is why they then understood why I was so infuriated after my divorce to find that most of my friends had bets to see if I was the ex-husband who started shooting up or the ex-husband who came out of the closet...

And Viggo Mortensen is there.

A couple of thoughts on viewing the list:

A very tiny number of the people on that page are ones whom reasonable people could fairly regard as traitors--John Walker Lindh, for instance. The others seem to be a grab bag of anyone who has, or might have, expressed any disagreement whatsoever with current Bush League policy. A clumsy attempt at guilt by association?

Some of the people on the page were front-page news thirty years ago, and I haven't heard or seen anything about them having made statements on this war at all. Is this, in fact, just a grab bag of anyone vaguely left of center? Or, given the inclusion of Hillary Clinton and Al Gore, anyone vaguely left of the hard right?

Who's the guy who just has a sawhorse next his picture, no name?

And finally, anyone who can't come up with a picture of Al Sharpton, rather than a cartoon, is incompetent, lazy, or both.

Good to see him still annoying the Right.

Remember... there's no celebrity (or fictional character) so lacking in positive characteristics that there isn't some fangirl out there, somewhere, who's lusting after him...

I dunno, I have a lot of trouble coming up with a mental picture of Al Sharpton that isn't an awful lot like a cartoon...

Let's see. A Traitor, by the local definition, is anyone who undermines and contradicts the President's currently declared policy. Right. Got it.

I will... resist... the urge to google for a suitably-sized picture of Donald Rumsfeld.

"... and best damn WH Press Secretary in history ... no contest.- Bobby"