It was just another day in the life at the office – the regular same old, same old – until the phone rang. It was my nephew Jason.
Jason: Uncle Tom, I’ve got to chew the fat with you.
Tom: How many times do I have to tell you not to call me “Uncle Tom?”
Jason: Oh, sorry, I seem to keep dropping the ball on that.
Tom: Well, see that you mind your P’s and Q’s from now on. What kind of bug have you got in your ear, anyway?
Jason: Paisley and I are fit to be tied!
Tom: What, did you two make a bad call?
Jason: I don’t know – maybe we bought a pig in a poke.
Tom: Really? Where did you and Paisley go gathering nuts in May this time?
Jason: You’re aware we got on the Obama bandwagon right at the starting gun?
Tom: Tell me something I don’t know.
Jason: Then we threw our hats in the ring for him in the Maryland and Virginia Democratic primaries, when we worked for his campaign, going door-to-door, spreading the word.
Tom: That was a slam-dunk, no-brainer, I suppose. Then what?
Jason: Last week we grabbed hold of his coat tails and went to work for his campaign.
Tom: Pretty good timing – now that McCain’s got Huckabee beat like a drum, Obama putting Hillary in the dust should be like shooting fish in a barrel.
Jason: I think that might be counting the chickens before they hatch.
Tom: How come? At this point, isn’t Hillary just whistling past the grave yard?
Jason: You tell me! Looks like there’s a dance left in the old dame yet.
Tom: Hope springs eternal, eh?
Jason: She’s pulling out all the stops – when she isn’t throwing a Hail Mary, she’s making a grandstand play!
Tom: Attempting to dodge Obama’s roundhouse K.O. punch, I suppose?
Jason: Absolutely. She’s betting the farm, trying to turn the situation on its head!
Tom: Hey, look, all I know is what I read in the papers. Put it in a nutshell and give me the inside scoop.
Jason: Bottom line, Hillary’s got the Obama campaign nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
Tom: She throwing some kind of haymaker?
Jason: You bet! She’s coming around the mountain driving six white horses, screaming bloody murder about how Obama’s got Maggie’s drawers when it comes to ideas! Plus, adding insult to injury, she swears up and down he’s got ants in his pants and that he’s going against the grain with nothing but an ax to grind, yelling that it’s all about golden parachutes and the glass ceiling!
Tom: I’d say that just proves the old gray mare just ain’t what she used to be.
Jason: I’ll tell you one thing that’s still like she used to be – she still thinks Democratic voters just fell off a turnip truck!
Tom: Feeling her oats, you mean? Or are you saying she’s just walking around with her head in the clouds?
Jason: I’m saying she’s saying that there’s a sucker born every minute and that sucker always grows up to join the Democratic Party! She’s leaving no stone unturned, looking for nits to pick. And that’s what’s burning my onion – and Paisley’s too – all this spume she’s spouting off about Obama being all talk!
Tom: Says he’s all talk and no action?
Jason: Says that he talks the talk, but he doesn’t walk the walk. But it’s worse than that – she’s gone and made a mountain out of a molehill!
Tom: I’d say that strategy is about a welcome as a skunk at a lawn party.
Jason: Or hornets at a picnic! Yesterday, Hillary claimed Obama stole stuff from Deval Patrick.
Tom: How can she go overboard with a fairy tale like that? Patrick and Obama are friends, and I hold this truth to be self evident – using your friend’s property isn’t theft, it’s borrowing!
Jason: Well, you can tell that to the Marines, as far as she’s concerned.
Tom: But quoting your buddies is as kosher as corn beef brisket, even when your buddies are quoting somebody else.
Jason: Right! Is this the land of the free and the home of the brave or not?
Tom: I’d say she’s in over her head if she doesn’t realize that sampling the great words of our national heroes is as inevitable as death and taxes.
Jason: Yeah, in some respects, it’s a barrel of laughs.
Tom: She’s gone and caught herself between the between the Scylla of inanity and Charybdis of hypocrisy. Ever think about cooling your jets? You Obama supporters might be rising to the bait when you should be sinking with the tide.
Jason: You mean you think we’re going off half-cocked?
Tom: I’m just saying that you have nothing to fear but fear itself.
Jason: But this is no time for my candidate to be laid low by the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune!
Tom: Hillary knows that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, that’s all.
Jason: But it’s clear as a black cat with a red bird in its mouth – she’s got more underhanded plays than you can shake a stick at!
Tom: Yeah, I’ve seen her with that lean and hungry look. You Obama people ought not to throw the baby out with the bath water, though – so don’t lose your head; she’s a just a hyena in heat spraying upwind. Throw her some dead meat and let her chew on it. At this point, her campaign’s as messed up as a Pollock’s checkbook, anyway. It’s high time we gave the Clintons the hearty heave-ho down to Davy Jones Locker – metaphorically, of course. But someday, she and Bill both have to face the music and realize that money can’t buy votes – or happiness, for that matter.
Jason: You’re spot on about that – either one would give their right arm to deny Obama the nomination.
Tom: I got a sneaking feeling that the Wisconsin, Texas, Ohio and Hawaii primaries will burst their bubble and leave them in the lurch, come hell or high water.
Jason: Lord willing and the creek doesn’t rise! The Democrats absolutely have to win the White House this time – the country can’t take another four years of Republican screwing! It’s been a long train of abuses and usurpations, invariably pursuing the same objective – absolute despotism! Since 9/11, the Republicans have erected a multitude of new federal departments, and set swarms of government officers on us to harass the people.
Tom: Well, you have to look at both sides of the coin. Republicans always see the glass half full, you know – they ask not what they can do for their country; they ask what they can do their country for. But that’s just as American as apple pie – the only difference is, Republicans cook it like pineapple upside down cake, that’s all.
Jason: But the Republicans have taken us all to the cleaners! It’s obvious Hillary is toast; why can’t she dry up, blow away, make like a banana and split?
Tom: When somebody’s been running for president for the last three years, getting them to quit is like talking a starving dog off a butcher wagon.
Jason: Has Hillary eaten the yellow snow or something? How can she expect to get the nomination after she supported Bush’s invasion of Iraq?
Tom: Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained.
Jason: But Obama’s innocent as a newborn baby – he never voted for the Iraq war! Meanwhile, Clinton voted for it like a duck taking to water, and McCain voted for it like a hound dog chasing raccoons up a tree!
Tom: Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding; let us judge not, that we be not judged.
Jason: Well, I’m not about to jump the gun on Hillary, but anybody sharper than a wet corn flake can see that woman in the White House would be more dangerous than a mattress full of rattle snakes in a Mexican brothel!
Tom: That’s the thing about the people who get elected president – the world will little note, nor long remember what they say there, but it can never forget what they do there.
Jason: And sure as shooting, Obama’s going to have superior policies, you can take that to the bank!
Tom: As long as he can steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as the United States are now at liberty to do it.
Jason: Absolutely! A monkey in silk is no less a monkey, and the last thing we need is to end up all hunched over like a grizzly bear crapping razor blades – that would be the kiss of death. Today is the first day of the rest of our lives, after all.
Tom: My sentiments exactly. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy.
Jason: So, the other shoe has got to drop. We can’t wait around until Hell freezes over, you know!
Tom: I have a sneaking feeling that the straw that breaks the camel’s back is just around the corner.
Jason: They say there’s no getting blood from a stone, but a little birdie tells me that tonight, Obama’s going to run circles around Clinton.
Tom: I don’t want to rush to judgment, but I think it’s dollars to donuts her candidacy is dead as a door nail.
Jason: All she can do now is muddy the water.
Tom: A person would have to be dumb as a sack of hammers not to see that she’ll be crying crocodile tears down in the dumps before you can say Jack Robinson.
Jason: If she doesn’t get which way the wind’s blowing, you don’t have to be Einstein to figure she’s half a bubble off center. But can she let sleeping dogs lie and not keep on whispering sweet nothings to the electorate?
Tom: Well, you don’t have to be Arthur Ashe to see that the ball is in her court.
Jason: Anything else on her part now would just be a shot in the dark.
Tom: The proof of the pudding is in the eating.
Jason: But the gall! The cheek! The chutzpah! Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!
Tom: It may be plain as the nose on her face, but don’t expect her to learn how to put her pants on one leg at a time just because she falls on her face otherwise.
Jason: I mean, I could understand, maybe, Hillary kicking sand if my candidate stole something she said, but what’s this plagiarism bee in her bonnet about, anyhow?
Tom: She’s just brewing a tempest in a teapot, offering cups of it to whoever comes down the pike and seeing if anybody will actually drink the stuff.
Jason: This whole issue about stealing phrases – I think it’s a double edged sword. Obviously, Hillary showed up when the train was leaving the station and missed the damn boat, that’s all.
Tom: No doubt about it, she opened a huge can of worms.
Jason: You can say that again. How long you figure before she gets cold feet and throws in the towel?
Tom: How long indeed? If she can’t stand the heat, then she should get out of the kitchen.
Jason: You bet – after tonight, Hillary will be chewing on a whole new ball of wax.
Tom: The time has got to come soon, when she realizes she’s carrying coals to Newcastle.
Jason: No way she should stick around for the bum’s rush.
Tom: She’s either got to use it or lose it.
Jason: Put up or shut up.
Tom: Fish or cut bait.
Jason: Ante up, bluff or fold.
Tom: Cross the Rubicon or turn around.
Jason: [Expletive] or get off the pot.
Tom: Ah, yeah.
Jason: [Expletive] or go make breakfast.
Tom:
Jason: [Expletive], [expletive] or [expletive] turn out the [expletive] lights and [expletive] go to sleep, right?
Tom:
Jason: Tom?
Tom: Paisley seems like a very nice, idealistic and charitable young lady, and all I can say is I certainly hope your attitudes toward a dangerous, toxic feminist harpy like Hillary Rodham Clinton aren’t being unfairly projected onto her.
Jason: Right. Uh, thanks, umm… for taking the time. I sincerely appreciate your advice.
Tom: You’re welcome.
Jason: So, you don’t think maybe Hillary isn’t just grasping at straws; that the Democratic super delegates are going to pull her chestnuts out of the fire and snatch victory from the jaws of defeat?
Tom: Oh, heavens, no! How could real life be so absurdly clichéd?