A success: I watched the Bush Family Christmas Skit and didn't throw up

Great God Almighty --Georgie and Laura and the girls and Barney did a little skit -- it was on the level of a High School Play -- no, not the Broadway ones the Juniors and Seniors put on like "The Importance of Being Ernest" or "Our Town" or "Picasso at the Lapin Agile or even the incredibly bad prehistoric ones they put on in the 50's like "Time Out For Ginger" or "Seven Keys to Baldpate" or whatever ... not those -- it was more a skit than a play, the kind of skit Seniors write for themselves for the Spring Festival -- supposed to be clever and fun, but mostly dopey, poorly executed and with lame, wooden lines written by a moron to be read by people of the same mental capability --- (Wow! Does this mean Monkey Boy is actually writing his own stuff?)

It even used the wonder of digital graphics and had a really primitive bit of animation with Barney, and a scene with Georgie talking sternly to him about how we needed to get things done during these final days -- but I was walking back into the room during that last one and couldn't see the screen, so I was certain it was Earl's Brother Randy, the mentally and reality-challenged character Ethan Suplee plays on "My Name is Earl" ("Wow," I thought, "what's HE doing on the news?")

And at the end, Laura, the anatomically correct Stepford Plushy mouthed the lines she was reading about how great it was and what a privilege it has been "to serve America these last 8 years."

At first I thought, glib smartass cynic that I am -- "Yeah, serve America a giant steaming plate of shit."

But then, on further reflection, I put everything I'd seen and heard during the 8 years that Bush and Cheney performed their impression of the Nova Mob* and remembered the classic sci fi story in which the alien visitors were surprisingly kind and generous and gave us all the mommy-daddy stuff we would wish for -- food and clothing and technological wonders -- and they used a reference book called To Serve Mankind**

Remember? Remember the end? The man shouting: "It's a COOKBOOK."

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*Nova Express by William Burroughs

** Actual title: To Serve Man -- it was a short story by Damon Knight, published in Galaxy Science Fiction magazine in 1950 and 51 years later, in 2001, was given the 1951 Retro Hugo Award for best Short Story.
It was adapted for The Twilight Zone and broadcast on March 2, 1962 and has been sent up and referred to in a passel of movies and TV shows (The Simpsons, Buffy the Vampire Killer, Madagascar, Married... with Children, et al)

Thanks to Ted Kane and Dick Lupoff, each of whom gave me facts that I've included in the correction above.