HT: Senator Kerry, why do you want to be President when you will be inheriting an impossible mess left by the current administration? Hercules cleaned out the Aegean stables but he had the help of the gods.
Senator Kerry: Frankly, HT, I'm terrified. Just uncovering all the problems that have been covered up and buried will be a daunting task. It's amazing that the current administration could screw up so much in just 4 years. But it will be disasterous if they get another 4. That's what really terrifies me.
HT: But the polls show that more than half of the country violently supports the Bush administration and doesn't recognize the crisis. Your TV ads are all about your Vietnam War courage, but ho hum. What are you going to do about our overextended military committments and deficit economy? How do you propose to turn that around?
Senator Kerry: I guess you're right about overdoing the war hero thing. But if I get into specific answers to straightening out the problems, the Bush administration will just say that that's what they were going to do all along.
HT: The country is frightened after 9/11. Fear may get Bush reelected. How do you fight fear?
Senator Kerry: You forgot to mention that the administration has continued to contribute to that fear by blame calling, meaningless color alerts, mass arrests that are probably illegal. You'll notice that it would be impolitic to resume the draft, even thought the armed services are over-committed.
HT: Do you intend to renew the draft?
Senator Kerry: Now that would be really disasterous. Bush has avoided it and nobody has mentioned the possibility. He has used the Reserve and National Guard instead and neither were intended for overseas combat. They obviously are not trained for it and were designed to protect the homeland, not to be shipped overseas for what may be years. Bush may have avoided the initial uproar that reinstituting Selective Service would cause, but interrupting careers by sending part-time soldiers overseas is biting him in the ass now.
HT: How would you get out of military problems without the draft?
Senator Kerry: Pull out of Iraq and let Allah sort it out.
HT: Cold, man.
Senator Kerry: Exactly. But it might work. Think about it. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Jordan, Syria cannot allow chaos in Iraq. Too big a threat to themselves. Even Israel would be worried. Nature abhors a vacuum and that is what Iraq is now. Somebody will fill in the gap.
HT: Even worse. We would lose control of the situation.
Senator Kerry: And we have control now?
HT: Big Oil will never let it happen.
Senator Kerry: Big oil contributed a great deal to the problem in the first place. F*** 'em.
HT: That will cost you their vote.
Senator Kerry: I don't have there support now, do I? An ill-conceived war cost Lyndon Johnson a second term. Who's to say that this one should do the same for Bush?
HT: There haven't been any demonstrations yet like there were against the Vietnam War.
Senator Kerry: There's no draft for this war. And this war is only a little over a year old.
HT: If you pull out of Iraq, the fundamentalists Islamists might take over the world.
Senator Kerry: Maybe. There are more of them than there are fundamentalist Christians after all.
HT: Are you saying that the war on terrorism is a religious war?
Senator Kerry: No. It is a war of geopolitic like every war since the dawn of time. Religion is just the excuse to drum up patriotism.
HT: To change the subject, will Ralph Nader split this vote like he did in the last election?
Senator Kerry: I'm more worried about Alfred E. Neuman. He appeals to rational voters. (see Alfred E. Neuman for President)
HT: Unfortunately, rationality is not really dominant in politics just now.
Senator Kerry: True, true.
HT: We wish you luck in November, but what will you do if you lose?
Senator Kerry: Move to Australia.
