It’s a wonderful presidency, sort of, though not really

What if it never happened? (Image via Wikipedia)

Christmas Eve in our nation’s capital. At the top of the Washington Monument, a tall, thin man prepares to leap to his death. Suddenly another man emerges from the shadows and grabs his arm.

Barack: Let me go!

Walter: Don’t do it, Mr. President. Your country needs you.

Barack: (bitterly) They sure have a funny way of…hey, you’re Walter Cronkite! But…you…you’re dead!

Walter: Yes, I’m an angel now. Unfortunately, just an angel second class. Haven’t got my wings yet. Or my harp. Not that I need a harp. Who wants to lug a harp around all day?

Barack: Second class! How come? You were universally respected.

Walter: Not by Him. (glancing upward) He thinks television newsmen aren’t “real journalists.” But never mind my problems. I’m here to save you.

Barack: What for? Everything’s a mess. My polls are tanking. The right thinks I’m a radical Muslim and the left thinks I’m a spineless wimp. I can’t bring down unemployment. I can’t figure out how to end these darn wars. I can’t get the bankers to make loans. Copenhagen won’t do squat to slow down global warming. Reality-TV contestants are crashing my state dinners. Tiger Woods happened on my watch.

Walter: But what about health-care reform? It looks like you’ve got a deal on that.

Barack: Some deal. That mean old Mr. Lieberman and that bribable Mr. Nelson made us take everything good out of it and poor, befuddled Senator Harry misplaced the public option and can’t find it. I tell you, Clarence…

Walter: Walter.

Barack: Sorry, Walter. I tell you, Walter, I wish I’d never been elected President!

Walter: Oh you do, do you?

Barack: Yes, I’ve come to believe in the audacity of hopelessness.

Walter: OK, you asked for it. Just for the sake of nightmarish yet instructive fantasy, you never got elected. We go now to Charles Collingwood at the White House. Charles, there seems to be a news conference going on.

Charles Collingwood: Yes, Walter, there is. The President is answering questions about MPI, the Military Prayer Initiative.

President Palin: Yeah, so we’re sending 250,000 armed chaplains to the Venezuelian and Iranic wars because we want our boys there to be protected by God when they’re up against the terrorists. It’s a clergy surge!

Charles Collingwood: How will we pay for it, Madame President?

President Palin: Easy as pie! We’ll pay for it by cutting taxes on the corporations, and that’s only fair considering that they’re the ones who create jobs and jobs are what we need when we’re talking about hiring the unemployed, which is what I call working people who aren’t presently working at the moment. They just need to have faith, you see, and then they’ll be OK. I always had faith and look at me.

Barack: (stunned) President Palin? How can this be?

Walter: It seems there was an accident. Vice President Palin invited President McCain up to Alaska for a moose hunt and somehow Todd’s rifle went off in the helicopter and next thing you know, we had President Palin.

Barack: Oh my God.

Walter: Hold on a moment. Robert Trout is standing by in the Senate chamber.

Robert Trout: Yes, Walter. I’m here with mean old Mr. Lieberman, who has just won a resounding victory in his Senate re-election bid in Connecticut. He’s announced that he’s a Republican and he seems to be overacting.

Lieberman: That’s right, Robert. At last I can drop the disguise. I was never a Democrat at heart. I’m a Republican all the way and we Republicans run everything now! The party has rewarded me with my own torture dungeon in the Capitol basement, where I’m waterboarding all the liberals who humiliated me. Revenge is mine! Sweet sweet revenge! I’ll squash the little people! I’ll crush those uninsured rabble! Bwaaahaahaaa!

Barack: I must be dreaming. This can’t be happening.

Walter: I know. He’s really chewing the scenery. But we’ve got one more vignette to get through. Are you there, Eric Sevareid?

Scary Apparition: Boo! I am the Ghost of Christmas Future! I will show you sights that curdle your giblets! I will show you what comes of being a grumpy old tightwad.

Walter: Just a moment, sir. You’re in the wrong Christmas story.

Scary Apparition: What? Aren’t you Ebenezer Scrooge?

Walter: No. You’ll find Scrooge on AMC, though not the good version with Alastair Sim, I’m afraid.

Scary Apparition: Terribly sorry. (He disappears)

Eric Sevareid: Hello, Walter, I’m here in Chicago with depressed spinster librarian Michelle Robinson, who’s just been laid off due to municipal budget cuts.

Barack: Robinson? Spinster librarian? Hold on, that’s my wife! Michelle, don’t you know me? It’s Barack, your beloved husband.

Michelle: Never heard of you. You’re kind of cute, though.

Walter: You see, Barack, this is what the world would have been like if you’d never been born.

Barack: Now, hold on. I wished I’d never become President, not that I’d never been born.

Walter: Oh, dear. I’m sorry. I don’t do this fantasy stuff well. I’m a newsman, damn it. I deal in fact.

Barack: No wonder you’re a second-class angel.

Walter: (dejected) I’ll never get my wings. I think I’ll kill myself. Oops, forgot; I’m already dead.

Barack: Aw, cheer up, Walter. I’ll put in a good word for you upstairs. He’ll listen to me. After all, I’m President of the United States.

Walter: (brightening) You mean you’re not going to end it all?

Barack: That’s right, Walter. I’ve learned a valuable lesson from your inept fantasy mongering. I’ve realized that it isn’t that I’m not up to the job, it’s that our democracy doesn’t work anymore. The Senate is dysfunctional, the corporate lobbyists and Wall Streeters are all-powerful, the electorate is full of morons and lunatics…

Walter: And you learned all that from me?

Barack: Yes but mainly from reading Paul Krugman and Frank Rich on my handy BlackBerry here while mean old Mr. Lieberman was emoting. You see, Walter, we’re so screwed up, we’re doomed and not even Abe Lincoln, FDR and Superman could fix it. The unfixable mess is not my fault!

Walter: Now you’re talking sir. I believe we have a happy ending after all. You’re staying alive and I’ve succeeded at angeling. And that’s the way it is!

Barack: You had to get that in, didn’t you?

Walter: Well, it is my trademark signoff. I’m famous for that closing. If I didn’t say “that’s the way it is” in my soothing, avuncular baritone, people wouldn’t recog…

Barack: (checking his BlackBerry) Good night, Walter, I’ve got to get back to the White House pronto. Joe Biden is threatening to kill himself.