WASHINGTON, 21 March 2004 — George W. Bush had a dream. He dreamed that he was a child again with his cowboy hat, toy pistol, and his hobbyhorse. And that Hollywood cowboy hero Hopalong Cassidy came to play Posse and Outlaws with him. Hopalong gave George a white hat just like his own so that everyone would know that George was one of the good guys. But, then, Hopalong had to go back to Hollywood and make some more Westerns. He told little George that George was a big boy now that he had his own white hat that he could shoot straight and ride tall in the saddle. George didn’t need Hopalong anymore, Hopalong told him. George could be the new Hopalong Cassidy, the new number one cowboy.
Suddenly, George found himself in the White House. It wasn’t long before the some very bad outlaws attacked. The problem was that you couldn’t quite be sure who those outlaws were. You couldn’t even see the color of their hats. But George had some ideas of where they came from and an even better idea of what countries they didn’t come from but that had oil; so, the whole region became the region of the black hats, and Sheriff George sicced his posse upon one the countries. Everyone seemed happy with that. So, the next posse, a much bigger one, went after one of the black-hatted countries that had oil, even though none of its black hats had attacked America.
George assumed that all the other countries, the ones with the white hats, would join him and help Good defeat Evil. When they didn’t, he knew that they didn’t really wear white hats, that all along, they, just like the other bad guys, wore black ones.
So, George had some of his deputies change the name of French Fries to Freedom Fries because of those Wine-Drinking, “Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys” (a.k.a. the Frogs, a.k.a. the French). For some strange reason, though, he stopped short of changing the names of Sauerbraten and Wienerschnitzel (probably because he and most Americans didn’t eat much of those things, but at least he could have changed the name of sauerkraut! How about Freedomkraut or Sauerliberty?). Remember that the Germans too opposed the war?
But, then — he couldn’t believe it — the day came when he had to consider doing something about olives, and it was because of the Spanish. They too were no longer wearing white hats. The least he could do was to ban Spanish olives. America would still have Greek and Italian olives. Deputy Powell, though, whispered in his ear that, like the Spanish, most of the Italians had opposed his invasion of black-hatted Iraq, and that Italy’s Sheriff, Berlusconi, could end up being replaced by some sheriff with a black hat just like Aznar had been replaced by one. Italian olives would have to go too. And the Greeks, Deputy Powell said, weren’t big fans of Bush’s posse politics either.
“Look, we should have stuck with good old American Grade-A beef, with rustler steak and potatoes, just like from the old chuck wagon, back home on the range!” cried Sheriff George. “It was much better in the days before pizza arrived in this country, before some pansy brought us cappuccino and latte, when everything was so simple, in the days when Hopalong Cassidy wore the white hat and the bad guys always wore the black ones. It was easier to shoot straight then. But, now, it seems that the more black hats we shoot off, the more new black ones appear. And even some of the guys with the white hats are switching to black.”
“Some are gray,” interrupted Deputy Powell. “Even worse,” replied Sheriff George, “how can you tell gray from black? If it ain’t white, well, it’s got to be black. If it ain’t with us, it’s ag’in us! Good is white, and this gray business is a just a trick of Evil! Heck!” (for Sheriff George thought it immoral to say ‘Hell’) “Where is Hopalong Cassidy when I need him? He’d know how to deal with this.”
Suddenly, George woke up, relieved, in the white sheets of his bed in the comfort of his White House, relieved as he realized that it had all been only a bad dream...or was it? Was it something else? Was God trying to tell him something...God was often telling him things...Yes, God was trying tell him something. “Spain has oil. Those olives have oil. And a lot of the Spaniards look just like Arabs! Even some of their words sound like Arab words. And aren’t those ‘El’s’ they’re always saying a lot like the ‘Al’s’ that the Arabs are always saying? Seems like another Al-Qaeda conspiracy to me...or is it El-Qaeda?” Immediately, he picked up the phone by his bed and dialed. “Get me Deputy Rummy...er...Secretary Rumsfeld,” he ordered. “Get me the Pentagon!”
Later in the day when George told the rest of his staff about his dream, about God and Hopalong Cassidy, and about his plans for a new invasion, Colin Powell whispered to Condoleezza Rice, “didn’t Hopalong Cassidy actually wear a black hat?” “Shhhh,” Condi hissed back. “If our president says that Hopalong wore a white hat, that’s what he wore. End of story.”
