An Interview With Senator John Gore-Clinton

Question: Senator Gore-Clinton, you announced today that you have created a group to organize your run for the presidency in 2008. What specifically made you want to ruin, I mean run, the United States of America?

JGC: Well, as you know, I have an enormous ego. Obviously, pining away my days in the Senate representing the good people of the state of Liberal are an utter and complete waste of my collective talents. I’ll name some now…

Q: That is quite alright sir, we kn…

JGC: …I have a mind that won’t quit, it is always turning things over in my head and, I know this will sound strange to you, sir, seeing as your intellect could not possibly be remotely close to the faculties I have cultivated through my various and contrived experiences…

Q: All very well, sir, but abo…

JGH: …Back in the 90’s, when it was the economy, stupid, the Democratic Party was rolling in it, the money, that is. Are you following me, stupid?

Q: Yes, it was a jubil…

JGC: It was a jubilant decade that fostered previously unmitigated growth in corporate salaries and scandal. But, since those scandals broke on the current president’s watch during his first year in office, back in 2001, we have been able to mislead the less intelligent voting public into thinking that it was those “darn fat cat Republicans” fault for job loss and bankrupting personal investors life savings, when really, the previous administration was, er, distracted pursuing dalliances of another, yet still very important sort.

Q: Those were trying times, indeed. I wanted to ask you, sir, how you will be able to reconcile your voting record on the current war in Iraq. It seems that, having served on the Senate Arms and Services Committee, you based your vote to authorize President Bush to wage war in Iraq on the same intelligence reports that the President saw.

JGC: That’s right, I did and I would do it again.

Q: In fact, months, and even years, before the war began you are on record as saying that Saddam Hussein must not be allowed WMD’s and that it is imperative to remove him from his seat of power.

JGC: Yes, Hussein was a menace inside the Middle East region. He invaded two countries and lobbed missiles at Israel for sport!

Q: Okay, but now you are telling voters that the war was a mistake and the President lied to all of us about Hussein’s WMD capacity.

JGC: Yes, the president lied and you all know what I’m talking about!

Q: Actually, no, I don’t.

JGC: Well of course you don’t! You are just a journalist who writes what I tell you to write. I love you mainstream press people, you’re like lemmings and we here in the Democratic Party sure do appreciate having stooges like you as foil to impress upon the great country of America how important we are to them. Obviously, since the leadership of the DNC are highly educated types who know what is best for the people of our country, it’s not surprising really that we have not done well in national elections recently. The very people whose lives we try to run so as to help them have better lives, simply cannot see the visionary utopia we have for America.

Q: Very illuminating, senator, but having said all that, are you sure that your plan for America is one that will be viable for the 21st century? For example, California was once a forward-thinking, progressive state that attracted business and created jobs. But the state congress has been controlled by the Democratic Party since the beginning of the Clinton era and has since driven the state into heavy debt, ruining its credit rating and saw it’s leadership in both industry and education fall from being the envy of not only the nation, but the entire world, to now straining to reach the aspirations of…Mississippi?

JGC: But don’t you see? The president lied about WMD’s, he lied about 9/11 and he lied about Katrina!

Q: I fail to see the correlation. How can you equiv…

JGC: You cannot see it because you are not enlightened like I am. Take capital punishment. What kind of free society is it that cheapens life thus? I look at the death of an inmate, murderous though he is, as a personal wound in my heart, my very heart. I feel his pain, I truly do. (Senator Gore-Clinton clears away a few tear stains)

Q: That is very interesting indeed, senator. Tell me, so that I may understand better, why it is that you find empathy in the death of a convicted murderer yet also believe in the murder of the unborn in this country?

JGC: The answer is, or should be obvious, the killer is a person, while the unborn is just that, unborn.

Q: But it is alive, sir, inside the womb of the mother, it is alive with a functioning brain and beating heart after just a few months.

JGC: Ah, but that’s where you are misguided, for even if that is so, the fetus cannot survive on its own outside the mother’s womb!

Q: But that is true of any baby born outside the womb as well. If left to fend for itself, it will not survive. I find it incredulous that your party, the Democrats, can live with such a faulty dichotomy!

JGC: That’s because you are not the intellect of me and other leaders of the party. What happens to the child that is born unwanted and unloved?

Q: They become Democrats?

JGC: Hmm, you actually have a point there. I need to give Howard (Dean) a call.

Q: Finally, I’d like to bring up your philosophy on the economics of taxes.

JGC: Yes, taxes, the more the merrier, I say. This great country was built on taxation and will stay great with taxes because…

Q: Yes, I know, it’s the economy, stupid.

JGC: I beg your pardon! Who are you to call me stupid! Taxing just the rich and making sure they pay their fair share is about American as America can get. Why, do you know that with the Bush tax cut, a person making over $200,000 a year can buy a new Mercedes with his refund while the average family making $50,000 can buy a magazine with a Mercedes-Benz advertisement in it with their refund? It simply is not fair!

Q: But senator, the wealthiest people in America already pay 95% of the federal personal income tax collected. Of course they will earn a higher refund, they contributed more.

JGC: That, sir, is completely beside the point. It is not about the facts; it’s about how you feel. People, the people who are struggling in the middle class and the poor struggling to escape the poverty of free housing and money feel that the rich are not paying their fair share.

Q: Even though they are actually paying quite a bit more than their fair share?

JGC: Precisely!

Q: Well, senator, it is hard to argue that line of reasoning.

JGC: Thank you.

Q: It wasn’t a compliment.

Richard L. Barrett, III is a writer with a BA in English Literature, who loves to write about the human condition