Casa Blanca Comix

Good evening, Mister President. Got a few minutes?

Sure thing, Ambassador Blaine, what's on your mind? Everything okay in Morocco?

The Kingdom of Morocco is fine, Mister President. I wanted to talk about something else that quite frankly you may think is none of my business.

I always try to be open to other people's ideas, Ambassador... Want me to get you an ashtray? It's got the presidential shield on it - you can keep it.

Thanks, Mister President. And you can call me Rick. Mind if I call you Barry?

Mister President will do fine. So what's on your mind?

It's like this, Mister President. I look at this country right now and see a nation that's gone dangerously off it's tracks. There's no jobs out there anymore for an honest man, no way to hold onto your dignity. People are hurting, and when that happens they either start to give up hope, or else they start developing crazy ideas. Sometimes both.

Tell me about it, Rick. But what am I supposed to do? Even before I came into office with all my hopes and dreams, I learned that the previous president had set me up. George Bush, along with his crooked cronies on Wall Street and the oil companies.

What? You gonna tell me you were shocked that there was gambling going on? They saw you coming, pal. Now you got an economy in shambles, and you're the fall guy. Between the fifteen million folks who are officially jobless, the six million who've quit looking, and all the people who are having to hang on to any two bit part time work they can find just to scrape by, you've got thirty million citizens who want your scalp. They're not concerned about who started this mess, they only want to know who's going to fix it.

Pretty grim, isn't it? But I've done pretty much everything I can do. I can't get anything else through Congress, and the private sector isn't helping...

The private sector has no reason to help you, Mister President, and the Congress is too frightened. Don't you get it? It's gotta be to you to get us out of this.

Yeah, right. If wishing would make it so, I guess we would be streaming full speed ahead right now.

You've got to think big. Remember FDR? Yeah, I know you do. During the Great Depression, he started the WPA and put people to work for the public good. You need something like that now. Like you always say, the government is the spender of the last resort. Get people fixing bridges and roads, building rail, doing all the things that are going to have to be done anyway if you don't want this dump to turn into a third world country.

Sure, that's easy for you to say, but there's no appetite for it. It would add literally trillions to the deficit and totally overburden the next generation.

Better an overburdened generation than a lost one, huh, pal? There's still time for you to be the hero, whether anyone else knows it or not. Campaign on it hard, tell the people that this is the only way you can insure the future of the county, and ask them to give you the Congress that will make it happen. Reach out to that desperate thirty million.

I don't know, if we could mobilize those thirty million... Maybe I don't have anything left to lose and should just play the hand I've been dealt. What do you think, Rahm?

I think you'd be trying to draw into an inside straight. Our polling shows that most of these people are feeling far too disenfranchised to vote.

Mister President, if this train leaves the track and you don't try to stop it, you're going to regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your life.

I'm sorry, boss, but the New Orleans Saints are here for your photo op.

Thanks, Rahm, got a breath mint? And thank you for stopping by, Ambassador. Gotta go.

Of all the gin joints in all the world, Rahm walks into mine... I guess it doesn't take much to see that the problems of thirty million little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.