"The only way I can lose this election

is if I'm caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy."
- Edwin W. Edwards.

Oh you mean there actually are live boys?

And both the Party of God’s Preceptor of the House and Morality Leader knew about it?

For weeks and weeks? And did absolutely nothing?

Well I'm sure no one could have anticipated the something something, so cue stirringly patriotic music. Preferably something brassy and violiny and urgent that Fox News plays under its B-Roll of “Operation Endless Clusterfuck: The Glory Years.”

Because in the Alternate Reality where criminals and perverts don’t run the government, the President is about to address the nation…

In the normal course of events, Presidents come to this chamber to report on the state of the Union. Tonight, no such report is needed. It has already been delivered by the American people.

...
Tonight we are a country awakened to danger and called to defend freedom. Our grief has turned to anger, and anger to resolution. Whether we bring our enemies to justice, or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done.

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Americans have many questions tonight. Americans are asking: Who was the pervert that solicited sex from this page? The evidence we have gathered all points to a collection of loosely affiliated Republican organizations known as al NAMBLA. They are the same Republicans who stood by the Rotting Corpse of Tom DeLay; the same Republicans who stood by while Jack Abramoff looted and perverted the American government.

Al NAMBLA is to Republican Powerbrokering what the mafia is to crime. But its goal is not merely making money; its goal is remaking the world -- and imposing its radical beliefs on people everywhere.

Al NAMBLA practices a fringe form of Biblical extremism that has been rejected by Christian scholars and the vast majority of Christian ministers and pastors -- a fringe movement that perverts the peaceful teachings of Jesus. The Al NAMBLA directive commands them to impute the courage, morality, constancy and integrity of all non-Fundamentalist Republican, and makes no distinction among military and civilians, including women and children.

This group and their leaders -- men named Karl Rove, James Dobson and Jerry Falwell -- are linked to many other organizations, including Focus on the Family and the Council of Conservative Citizens. There are thousands of these Republican cells in all 50 States. They are recruited from campuses and churches and brought to Republican Fundraisers and Think Tanks in places like Washington and Arkansas and Florida, where they are trained in the tactics of lying and betrayal.

They are sent back to their homes or to Congress to plot evil and destruction.

The leadership of al Al NAMBLA has great influence in Red State America and supports the Fundamentalist regime in controlling most of that part of the country. In training films “Jesus Camp”, we see al NAMBLA’s vision for the world.

Women are not allowed to control their own bodies. You can be jailed and tortured forever without trial. Religion can be practiced only as their leaders dictate. A man can be Swiftboated in America if he speaks the truth.

Real America respects the people of Red States -- after all, we are currently its largest source of federal aid -- but we condemn the House Republican regime. It is not only deliberately dumbing-down its own people, it is threatening people everywhere by sponsoring and sheltering and supplying degenerates. By aiding and abetting perverts, the House Republican regime is, in effect, molesting minors.

“Allegedly.”

And tonight, the Real United States of America makes the following demands on the House Republicans: Deliver to authorities all the leaders of al NAMBLA who hide in your Party. Release all e-mail, transcripts, diaries and other testimonies related to sexual predation of children, including Congressional pages, you have hidden. Protect minor children in your Congress. Close immediately and permanently every Christian Madrass in Jebusland, and hand over every Al NAMBLA member, and every person in their support structure, to appropriate authorities.

These demands are not open to negotiation or discussion. The House Republican regime must act, and act immediately. They will hand over the perverts, or they will share in their fate.

I also want to speak tonight directly to Christians throughout the world. We respect your faith. It's practiced freely by many millions of Americans, and by millions more in countries that America counts as friends. Its teachings are good and peaceful, and those who commit evil in the name of Christ blaspheme the name of Christ. The Republicans are traitors to their own faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Christianity itself. The enemy of America is not our many Christians friends. Our enemy is a radical network of Fundamentalists, and every government that supports them.

Our war on perverts begins with al NAMBLA, but it does not end there. It will not end until every Fundy Hate group has been found, stopped and defeated.

Real Americans are asking, why do they hate us? They hate our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other.

These Republicans do what they to not merely to end lives, but to disrupt and end a way of life. With every atrocity against the Constitution, they hope that Real Americas grow fearful, retreating from their onslaught and forsaking our values.

Republicans hate us, because we stand in their way.

We are not deceived by their pretenses to piety. We have seen their kind before.

They are the heirs of all the despicable ideologies of the 20th century. By sacrificing human life and the rule of law to serve their radical visions -- by abandoning every value except the will to power -- they follow in the path of fascism, and Nazism, and totalitarianism. And they will follow that path all the way, to where it ends: in history's unmarked grave of discarded lies.

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Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated voting. Americans should not expect one election, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic upsets, visible on TV, and local elections, secret even in success. We will starve Republicans of legitimacy, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue organizations that provide aid or safe haven to al NAMBLA and their ilk.

Every city, every county, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the House Republican degenerates. From this day forward, any organization that continues to harbor or support Conservative Fundamentalism will be regarded by the Real United States as a hostile regime.

These measures are essential. But the only way to defeat Conservative Fundamentalism as a threat to our way of life is to stop it, eliminate it, and destroy it where it grows.

Many will be involved in this effort, from election judges to precinct workers to the school boards across this country that work the keep science and reason in the curriculum, and ignorant superstition out. All deserve our thanks, and all have our prayers.

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This is not, however, just America's fight. And what is at stake is not just America's freedom. This is the world's fight. This is civilization's fight. This is the fight of all who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom.

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Americans are asking: What is expected of us? I ask you to live your lives, and hug your children. I know many citizens have fears tonight, and I ask you to be calm and resolute, even in the face of a continuing threat.

I ask you to uphold the values of America, and remember why so many have come here. We are in a fight for our principles, and our first responsibility is to live by them.

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The course of this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is certain. Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them.

Fellow citizens, we'll meet violence with patient justice -- assured of the rightness of our cause, and confident of the victories to come. In all that lies before us, may God grant us wisdom, and may He watch over the United States of America.

Thank you.

Clarifying Update: If the text of this speech sounds familiar, it is an edited-and-regifted version of the speech Michael Gerson wrote for George Bush, delivered on September 20, 2001.

Back a million years ago when we were united and purposeful.

I though it would serve two useful ends: to show how ridiculously hypocritical the GOP Party of God sounds when they moralize about the evils of the Intolerant Fanatics of Faith, and to recall what we were -- for one, brief moment -- back before the Republican Party chose to hijack and pollute the tragedy of 9/11 for partisan advantage with Rovian lies, slanders and unabashed totalitarian struttings.

Back before Bush and Cheney chose to split our grieving nation like a meat axe through bread pudding.

How strange it is to remember that the Leader of the Empire of Fear once talked of "pluralism, tolerance and freedom" and normal people actually believed he was serious.

How sad it is to remember that the Torturer-in-Chief once called upon the nation to "fight for our principles" by living by them.

How grotesque and tragic it is to remember that the head of the Party of Falwell and Coulter once took to the national stage to denounce fringe and hateful religious extremists that have perverted the peaceful teachings of their faith's founder.

But then again the Dear Leader is a Republican, and in His Age -- the Age of Dubya -- one can either be a Good American or a Good Republican, but one can no longer be both.