Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Democrats make the case for GITMO


Reid demonstrates the proper Democratic response to a released terrorist.

After long and deliberate consideration, Senate Democrats have come to the determination that Guantanamo Bay really isn't all that bad, as far as prisons go. And also too, President Obama has been more than a little slack in laying out details of a plan that they can sell to their constituents.

"Democrats under no circumstances will move forward without a comprehensive, responsible plan from the president," said vulnerable Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. "And by responsible, I mean a plan that doesn't involve Nevada or any of the other 49 states or US territories or the District of Columbia. The nice thing about GITMO is that we don't really own it, we're just there on a perpetual lease that we picked up for chump change back in 1903. And, heh heh, since the government of Cuba doesn't recognize the lease, we even get to keep the chump change."

"And that's change I can believe in," chimed in Minority Leader McConnell. "Say, have you seen Senator Webb's silly amendment to spruce up the GITMO public relations image? He wants to change the name to No Man's Land."

"Silly but romantic, Mitch, so I hope that you'll agree to toss a colleague a bipartisan bone."

"Much appreciated, Harry," said Webb. "It's a little turn of phrase I used in my screenplay for 'Rules of Engagement'. Samuel Jackson is trying to evacuate the US embassy in Yemen where an unruly mob has gone all jihad and stormed the gates, and when Jackson realizes he's going to have to open fire on them he shouts "Holy cow, this is motherfucking No Man's Land!" It's kind of the tag line for the movie, and the DVD is coming out on Blue Ray next week, if you catch my drift."

"Introduce me to Tommy Lee Jones and I'll guarantee that your amendment flies through, Jim. But back to what I was saying to Mitch, which is that we will never allow terrorists to be released into the United States."

"And therein lies the rub," nodded McConnell. "Like you were saying, you can't put these people in prison unless you release them first. And that is the X factor, the unknown quantity of time between being a detainee and being a common prisoner. Anything can happen during X, and I think we've all seen enough movies to know that anything does."

"Lets face it, detainee prisoner or common prisoner, nobody likes to be in prison, nobody at all," added junior New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, eager to be part of any conversation at all. "Okay, I'm sure that there are exceptions to the rule, there always are, but I think it's probably fair to say that the type of individual that likes to be in prison is probably the type of person that belongs in prison. Of course, that does pose a dilemma, doesn't it? Cause you're rewarding that particular wrongdoer with the very thing they want, but I guess, since we're only talking about a theoretical wrongdoer we should just leave that particular worry to the eggheads."

"Yeah, the type of eggheads that sit around thinking about symbolism," chuckled Reid. "You know, you get caught up in these things, but when I look back at it, the main reason we ever brought up the idea of closing GITMO in the first place was because of the negative symbolism, and I've got to ask myself - what are we anyway, a bunch of college Lit majors?"

"High school English is more like it." clarified McConnell. "I remember back when I was a sophomore at duPont Manual, we had to read 'Lord of the Flies' and write about the symbolism. It's just a bunch of boys on an island! Christ, I got a D and haven't read another piece of fiction since then, unless you want to count 'The Audacity of Hope'.

"Low blow, but I know what you mean," countered Gillibrand. "No offense to Senator Webb, but why would you want to read a book anyway when they can tell the same story so much better in a two hours movie? All that describing of things... you spend five pages explaining what some character looks like when all you really need to do is just look at the screen. Duh. Give me a break."

"But back to my point," continued Reid, "I can't believe that anyone would really wantto have a terrorist roaming around in their back yard, even if it's only in the back yard of their mind. And who can blame them, what with all the terrible prison breaks we've had lately? I heard that Charlie Manson just escaped for the third time this year. If we can't hold on to an old acidhead like that, what chance would we have of containing hardened terrorists?"

"Particularly when all the sleeper cells are just waiting to storm the prison gates and create havoc," Webb added sagely.

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