“Huey” “Dewey” and “Louie” in Disneyland

Huey: What is it?

Dewey: It’s a letter from the Pentagon.


Louie: A letter from the Pentagon?


Huey: A letter from the Pentagon.


Dewey: Is there an echo in here?


Louie: There’s no echo. There’s no “in here.”


Huey: Because we’re outside.


Dewey: This is outside?


Louie: It’s a theme park.


Huey: Were inside a theme park.


Dewey: Which is outside.


Louie: Thank goodness we’ve got that straight.


Huey: You said there’s a letter from the Pentagon.


Dewey: I thought I had it right here.


Louie: What’s in it?


Huey: A lot of military guys—


Dewey: No, what’s in the letter?


Louie: It’s a letter that says we may be under surveillance.


Huey: Surely you must be kidding.


Dewey: Don’t call me Shirley.


A gray haired man who also was waiting in line said, “You can call me Shirley.”


Louie: The Pentagon wrote a letter?


Huey: Who taught a building how to write?


Dewey: The pentagon isn’t


Louie: a building, it’s


Huey: a bureaucracy.


Dewey: One thing bureaucracies can do


Louie: is create paperwork.


Huey takes the letter.


Huey: It’s not from the Defense Department.


Dewey: It’s from someone who says he works in the Defense Department.


Louie. A leak.


Huey: Are you


Dewey: sure your name is


Louie: Shirley?


Shirley: Surely.

Backstory


Recently three of the countries best political satirists met—no, I was not invited to join them. A nice person in the Homeland Security Office sent me a transcript of their conversation, complete with color pictures that were taken of the event. The satirists met at Disneyland. The reasons are obvious. The satirists find the absurd very attractive. Clearly, Southern California was the perfect place for them to meet. While they were waiting to take the Splash Mountain ride, much of their talk turned to politics.


The satirists, either for reasons related to their natural playfulness or a harebrained attempt to maintain anonymity referred to themselves as Huey, Dewey, and Louie.


Huey: I still don’t know who this guy who claims to be Shirley is.


Dewey: I hear Splash Mountain is sometimes called Flash Mountain.


Louie: As in take a picture . . . flash.


Huey: Flash? I knew a dog named Flash. Did someone let a dog in here?


Dewey: You want a dog to take a picture?


Louie: There’re no dogs in Disneyland.


Huey: Pluto’s a dog.


Dewey: And Pluto’s in Disneyland.


Louie: Pluto’s a planet.


Huey: Not anymore.


Dewey: What have you been doing?


Louie: Getting your news from the President?


Huey: They call it Flash Mountain as in flash . . .


Dewey: as in women flash


Louie: their features.

Good Time to be a Satirist?


Shirley said, “No doubt it’s a good time to be a satirist.”


Huey, Dewey, and Louie frowned.


Shirley: Whattareya talkin about? Huey wrote a spoof on McCain shopping in Baghdad and how safe it was—as long as he was wearing a flack jacket and a helicopter was flying overhead. A month later the same thing happened in real life.


Dewey wrote that really funny piece on how the all but one of candidates of the party of family values—all but one of them were divorced. Louie wrote that over a year ago. Now, a year later, all but one of the candidates for the party of family values are divorced—all but one of em. And the one who isn’t divorced, one of his ancestors was a polygamist.


Years ago Louie wrote that very funny piece about how the Democrats would regret voting for the war in Iraq. That too has happened.


As I said, this has got to be a great time to be a satirist.


Huey, Dewey, and Louie: Surely you must be kidding.


Shirley: I definitely am not kidding. We live in hilarious times.


Huey: That’s the problem.


Shirley: How is being funny a problem—when it’s your job to be funny?


Dewey: Our job is to be funny?


Louie: That’s what he said.


Huey: I thought our job was


Dewey: to poke fun at hypocrites,


Louie: deride the self-important,


Huey: shine a light into areas of darkness,


Dewey: and


Louie: make a few bucks.


Shirley: Anyway, so why are you guys depressed?


Huey: Law and order Republicans are talking seriously about a pardon for Scooter Libby—a man found guilty on four—


Dewey: Count em


Louie: four


Huey: felony counts.


Dewey: As the great Yogi Berra said,


Louie: You could look it up.


Huey: And the Democrats are being Democrats.


Dewey: Policies of the Pro-life party have killed hundreds of thousands in a war their policies started.


Louie: And the Democrats are being Democrats.


Shirley: What does that mean?


Huey: That means the Democrats are just preaching the politics of opportunity.


Dewey: It means they haven’t learned what they should about fear.


Louie: So what’s new about that?


Huey: Nothin.


Dewey: That’s the Democrats


Louie: being Democrats.


Take Nixon


Shirley: This can’t be all that different from other times. In other times politicians did stupid stuff. Take Nixon for example.


Huey: I don’t want to take Nixon.


Dewey: Do you want to take Nixon?


Louie: Not if you paid me.


Huey: He’s dead.


Dewey: Why would I want


Louie: to take a dead man?


Huey: My wife, now someone could take my wife.


Dewey: Please!


Louie: We should try


Huey: to be a little serious.


Dewey: Who can be a little serious?


Louie: You’re right.

Huey: We’re not good at being a little anything.

Shirley: So how’s Bush all that different from Nixon?


Dewey: Nixon wiretapped a few people; Bush wiretapped half the nation.


Louie: Nixon did some good things.


Huey: Environmental Protection Agency.


Dewey: He helped get the amendment passed that lowered the voting age to 18.


Louie: He opened the door to China.


Huey: Détente with Russia.


Dewey: What’s Bush done that’s good?


Louie: Well he goes to Texas a lot, and when he’s there, he generally doesn’t do much.


The Heart of the Matter


Shirley: Are you complaining that your job is too easy?


Huey: We try to be incongruous and absurd


Dewey: provocative and ridiculous.


Louie: Usually we do this by exaggerating


Huey: a trait or a quality


Dewey: a policy or a position.


Louie: The people we’re to ridicule, they do these things naturally.


Huey, Dewey, and Louie: It’s a horrible time to be a satirist.


Shirley: Why’s that?


Huey: Because the people we’re to make fun of are being so ridiculous that to exaggerate what they do,


Dewey: well to exaggerate what they do is


Louie: not possible.


Huey: They’re the satirists.


Dewey: And they’re not even trying to be satirists.


Louie: Imagine how that makes us feel.

Kudos


To Paul Begala and CNN for getting the gaffe thing right after the second Republican debate. Many media sources criticized Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee for confusing the date that Reagan died (June 5—the date of the debate) with the day he was born (February 6). Begala correctly pointed out a far more serious error made by Mitch Romney. Romney said, “If you're saying, let's turn back the clock and Saddam Hussein had opened up his country to IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] inspectors and they'd come in and they'd found that there were no weapons of mass destruction – had Saddam Hussein therefore not violated United Nations resolutions – we wouldn't be in the conflict we're in. But he didn't do those things, and we knew what we knew at the point we made the decision to get in.”


Begala noted correctly that in September 2002 Saddam Hussein did allow IAEA inspectors into his country. They did not find evidence that the country had weapons of mass destruction.

The failure of the media to notice the mistake, the failure of many to urge that the mistake be corrected, and the failure of the media to correct this mistake speak volumes about the weaknesses of the media today.

Line of the Week


Courtesy of The Late Show with David Letterman, “Paris Hilton is behind bars, but still no word on Osama”