With the Ukrainian Crisis in its second week, the Dalai Lama visiting Washington amid protests both diplomatic as well as on the streets, and the Conservative Political Action Conference in full swing, those would have been quite sufficient to keep Gretchen and me working twelve and fourteen hour days all week, including up until ten at night Saturday. But on top of all that, as luck and United States foreign policy would have it, Secretary of State John Kerry chose this week to send each and every US ambassador explicit instructions to make climate change their top priority, and quote, “…promote concerted action at posts and in host countries to address this problem.” Sheesh! As if there weren’t enough people banging at my office door this week – here came another battalion of clients, and the very last one last night was Dr. Jeremy Hillary Bork, Ph.D., of the Republican Climate Skeptics Association.
“Typical Obama dictator doctrine,” Bork fumed as he positioned himself firmly on the chair directly in front of my desk. “Having the Secretary of State order all our ambassadors to participate in the global warming hoax.”
“It’s in preparation for a United Nations conference next year,” I pointed out. “Hardly all that unusual a directive from the Secretary, given the circumstances.”
“The circumstances?” Bork bridled. “The circumstances are the cynical perpetration of the biggest Big Lie since that damn Communist Franklin Delano Roosevelt came up with social security! Climate change? Are you kidding me? The earth started out boiling hot, froze over to a huge snowball, thawed out to a steaming swamp, cooled off and warmed up through over a hundred Ice Ages, and went from a huge, dry supercontinent and a single stormy tropical ocean to what we have today, with seven continents and micro-climates all over the place! There are dinosaur bones and cycad fossils in Antarctica, under two miles of ice! Climate change is what this planet does! You’d think Obama and Kerry would be smart enough to figure that out, wouldn’t you? But you’d be wrong, because if they had to admit climate change is just a natural phenomenon, then they’d lose another excuse to impose their socialist policies on free markets!”
“Oh,” I japed, “you mean, like when Obama bailed out Wall Street after the sub-prime mortgage disaster – that kind of socialist policy?”
“That was appropriate federal government support under unfortunate, unforeseen and unavoidable circumstances, and it was a policy product of the Bush Administration, not the Obama Administraton!” he haughtily replied.
“And the difference between that policy and the federal food stamp program is what?” I prodded.
“The poors,” he snorted, “are beggars, moochers and layabouts, not hard-working entrepreneurs. They don’t take risks like the people on Wall Street do, day in and day out. If you create jobs, like the people on Wall Street do, then you create wealth and prosperity, and therefore, it’s the federal government’s responsibility to step in when the weather gets a bit rough and provide some additional ballast for your vessel.”
“That vessel,” I quipped, “being a yacht, and the ballast being several wheelbarrows full of solid gold bullion.”
“If that’s what it takes to keep the wheels of the American free market turning,” he proclaimed, “then so be it.”
“And the American taxpayers be damned?” I asked.
“And the American taxpayers should get down on their knees and thank the financial executives of Wall Street, who keep this country from turning into [expletive] Venezuela, which is exactly what that [expletive] [expletive] President [expletive] Barack [expletive] Hussein [expletive] Obama wants it to become!” Bork thundered. “Look, Collins, your mordant sense of humor is itself a well-known joke in this town, and I am completely aware of your renowned reputation for being able to see umpteen sides to the same question and hold to the fire, the feet of any person who might agree with any one of those sides. So well done – my compliments. However, the Republican Climate Skeptics Association is not paying your ridiculously high rates for me to experience edifying demonstrations of your estimable wit. Monday morning, we intend to issue a scathing press release in response to Kerry’s misinformed, underhanded, insincere and irresponsible orders to United States ambassadors.”
“It seems you have formulated an appropriate set of rhetoric,” I observed. “So, given that, what can I do for you?”
“Talking points,” Bork barked. “We need talking points, Collins. I assume you are thoroughly familiar with the relevant issues, so what have you got?”
“Perhaps your press release,” I proposed, “could suggest that Secretary Kerry would do better to admonish his ambassador corps to focus their efforts on station toward the elimination of global mercury pollution.”
“Mercury pollution?” Bork scoffed. “Why, every mainstream Republican knows that mercury pollution is completely over-exaggerated! It’s almost as big a hoax as climate change!”
“World wide, every day,” I reminded him, “thousands of multi-megawatt coal-fired power plants and millions of impoverished artisanal gold miners release billons of pounds of mercury into the air. It settles into the oceans and lakes, then bioconcentrates in the marine and limnetic food chains, posing a serious health hazard for all of humanity.”
“I’ve been eating swordfish all of my life,” he objected, “and as anyone can tell, I’m completely sane. No way the Republican Climate Skeptics Association is going to use that in its press release.”
“Okay,” I conceded, “your argument against mercury pollution makes just as much sense as your argument against anthropogenic climate change, if not more.”
“Nice to see you coming around to our way of thinking,” he nodded with an obvious air of satisfaction. “We’ll make a staunch mainstream Republican out of you yet, Collins. God knows, you have enough money to be one. What else do you have?”
“How about international trade in endangered species?” I ventured. “You could say that while Secretary Kerry is chasing a will of the wisp with the climate change hoax, he’s missing the boat entirely on saving exotic animals and plants, some of which are on the brink of extinction because of lack of coordination among the involved national governments and the United States, where most of the demand for such commodities originates and…”
“Except,” he interrupted, “I happen to be personal friends with several members of the Republican Climate Skeptics Association who own one or more… animals or plants… to which bleeding-heart liberals like Obama or Kerry might want to offer bogus protections. Not to mention my Republican buddies who have shot some of those animals, or have extensive ivory collections, gorilla-hand ashtrays in their libraries, Siberian tiger rugs in front of their fireplaces or rhino horn aphrodisiacs in their bedside night tables. Bottom line – forget it.”
“Then mention,” I recommended, “that while Senator Kerry displays to the entire world what a clueless dupe he is, wringing his hands in anguish over the insidious global warming hoax, the much more immediate tragedy of human trafficking continues unabated, and the energies of our extremely qualified and highly motivated ambassador corps would be much better concentrated on ending the obscene exploitation of helpless young people as domestic, industrial and sexual slaves for the economic benefit or perverted pleasures of…”
“No,” Bork interjected, “I don’t think so.”
“Why not?” I probed.
“Let’s not go into that too… deeply,” he requested. “Let’s just say, there are a number of prominent Republican Climate Skeptics Association members who would not… um… benefit from inquiries into… uh… related matters.”
“All right,” I acquiesced. “There’s the international war on drugs, of course, where…”
“What’s the matter, Collins?” Bork cut me off. “Are you trying to tell me you don’t you get invited to enough parties in the Hamptons?”
“Never mind,” I sighed. “Consider global overpopulation. Everywhere in the world, every night, bed is the poor man’s opera house. Worldwide, the less money a person has, the more children they produce, and the problem is obvious – too little thinking and too much [expletive]. You could go with that. Your press release could opine that instead of worrying about the absurd idea that global warming induced climate change is caused by human activities such as burning fossil fuels and cement production and methogenic processes like animal husbandry and fracking, Kerry should be telling our ambassadors to do everything they can to keep poor people all over the world from breeding like rabbits.”
“And deprive American industry of massive future foreign consumer markets?” Bork shouted. “Are you trying to get the Republican Climate Skeptics Association accused of short-sightedness?”
“In that case,” I shrugged, “how about you say that instead of telling our ambassadors to go after global climate change, Secretary Kerry should be telling them to examine foreign cultures for ideas about how to grow our economy without raising the minimum wage?”
“Now you’re talking!” Bork exulted. “That’s more like it! Come to think of it, that’s not just a talking point, Collins, that’s a [expletive] brilliant idea!”
“Thanks,” I replied.
“Look, Collins,” he continued, “I’ll take that talking point back to the Republican Climate Skeptics Association right now, but I want you to brainstorm on things we Republicans can look for – concepts, ideas, customs, practices and laws in foreign cultures – that will allow us to grow the American economy without raising the minimum wage. Can you do that for me?”
“No problem,” I assured him. “I could prepare some preliminary findings by COB Tuesday. And, of course, I assume you want me to screen out any solutions that involve trafficking in illegal drugs, endangered species or human beings, or massive environmental pollution, such as coal fired power plants, artisanal gold mining or…”
“Don’t bother with filtering them,” Bork snapped as he rose and snatched up his briefcase. “Just give us all the ideas you can think of, and we’ll take care of deciding which ones the Republican mainstream can use to our best advantage.”
“But of course,” I affirmed as he strode for the door, “but of course.”