Mr. Right was fortunate to grab a short follow-up interview with Media Man earlier this evening. Media Man was just emerging from the palatial George Soros residence where our Mr. Right was skulking in the hope of catching sight of a few famous people from the Show-biz world and perhaps one or two important terrorist go-betweens.
M.R. It sounds like a good party in there tonight, Media Man.
M.M. Yes. Splendid! Old George certainly knows how to entertain. Money is no object you know, with George. He always says, “There is plenty more where that came from!”
M.R. It’s amazing! He gives so much away to so many causes and yet he never runs out.
M.M. Yes! And his causes are all such good ones that I approve of – Lynne Stewart, Air America, Moveon.org, Ned Lamont and even the little people like Cindy Sheehan. No cause is too big or too small for George. He is all heart and hates injustice. I almost feel like he is one of us. A Media person, I mean!
M.R. Is he not, then! Not a Media person?
M.M. George has got his finger in everything as far as I can tell. But you had better ask him if he controls any media outlets.
M.R. It’s difficult to get to talk to him as he stays very much out of the limelight. Anyway, it’s you I want to talk to now I have the opportunity. You are looking so happy and so much more relaxed than the last time I saw you.
M.M. I am! I am! Well, we’ve got it in the bag, haven’t we? The election, I mean. That Foley story was the clincher. Just wonderful! The Bushies never knew what hit them. They never expected we would hang a homo story on them, not us. We had to sit on that story for weeks. No pun intended, by the way. I never joke about that sort of thing as its perfectly natural and I don’t want to offend all my many gay media colleagues. No, but that was the beauty of it. They thought we wouldn’t dare use homosexuality as a smear because of our principles, but all’s fair in love and politics, isn’t it? Anyway, once we have got control over the Supreme Court, we will make it compulsory in schools and in the Boy Scouts and what more could our gay people want? It’s worth making a few sacrifices for.
M.R. As I understand it, Foley never actually touched any of the pages, did he?
M.M. Not that I know of, but doesn’t that make our campaign even more of a tickle? Just think! We’ve turned an election, just on smoke without fire! You could say it was done with smoking mirrors. And we pumped up all this media fuss over nothing at a time of war! (At this point, Media Man giggled uncontrollably at some private joke.) It just shows the power we have. We can sway and distract the people with any old nonsense. Rush Limbaugh says that we are losing our monopoly, but we are more powerful than ever before, because we have complete control over the Dems and yet we can appear to be on the sidelines, just commenting. It’s great to watch those jerks in the Republican Party swatting back at the Dems when all the time it’s us making all the moves. Mind you, it wasn’t just Foley. We’ve been working hard on undermining the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for years and our work there is just coming to fruition. There was a time when I thought Bush was going to succeed over there. The Sunnis and the terrorists were losing heart. But once we got going on orchestrating the peace marches and reporting only bad news, the people over there began to see they could win here and it would be Vietnam all over again. People here are sick of it now and by the time we have finished totting up the deaths every day, the American people will have had enough. As I see it, by 2008, Bush will be a joke and Hilary will be a shoo-in and we will be complete masters.
M.R. Aren’t you worried that the al Qaeda lot might carry out some ghastly attack over here just before the election and drive voters to the Republicans?
M.M. Well, even if they did do something, I am sure we could make it look like Bush’s fault. Old George might even be able to get out the word on his websites that Bush had organized the attack himself, just to try to save the election. I am sure our news people could give that kind of story some respectability. But I don’t think al Qaeda will be that silly, do you? They must realize that we are on the same side and that we all want the same thing-Bush and the Republicans out! What they are doing at the moment is just right-stepping up the US death toll over there and putting bombs everywhere around Baghdad. We can do the rest with our reporting.
M.R. You seem supremely confident given that there are still two weeks to go.
M.M. Well, I am! We’ve completely demoralized the Republicans and Christians. Some of them are even beginning to say that defeat will do their side good, sort of teach them a lesson. The dopes! We never take that view! Defeat for us is a disaster and always unexpected. We believe we should win every time because we are morally and intellectually superior. What with the mood of defeatism we’ve managed to sow amongst them and our carefully prepared opinion polls, I am confident that millions of their people will stay home on polling day. Our opinion polls have been claiming we were in front for months and that really helps us to get a bandwagon effect. We publicize the polls that look good for us and keep any others out of the news. It’s simple! The only worry I have is that our people will stay home because they think it’s already over. So many of our voters are tired people, exhausted from getting their welfare checks and partying and bombed out on stuff, that they find any old excuse to stay in bed. You can only really get them going for a good march or demo. Still, we’ve got the union people and they know which side their bread is buttered. They turn out to vote because they get time off from work and work nice short hours. A lot of those Republican voters work in the private sector and work long hours to fund the taxman, so they have no time to vote. It’s a nice little arrangement really, one lot works to pay for the other lot and the other lot know who to vote for to keep that arrangement going!
M.R. We haven’t heard much about high employment, the soaring stock market, the falling gas prices and the good military recruitment figures in this election. Will you be covering them in the next two weeks?
M.M. Are you crazy? Our stories are going to be all doom and gloom. If there is any good news we can’t bury, like falling gas prices, we’ll say that Bush has engineered them with Big Oil. With the stock market and employment we’ll quote experts predicting that it can’t last and that some are being left behind. It’s all really easy when you control all the newspapers, magazines and nearly every TV channel. We can always wheel out Alec Baldwin and a few of his Hollywood playmates to threaten to leave the country if the Dems don’t take both Houses. That will frighten people!
M.R. What about Joe Lieberman in Connecticut? Supposing he wins and is a deciding vote in the Senate? Won’t that be disastrous for you?
M.M.. Joe who?
At that moment, Media Man’s giant ecological limo pulled up and with a cheery wave of his hand he jumped in and the door closed. I wasn’t sure, but I thought there were two very glamorous giggling starlets waiting inside for him on the back seat. Two big security guards emerged out of the darkness and told me to get on my bike as I was too near the residence of the “man of the little people”. I did as I was told. I have to start getting used to the new master class.