The Capture and Internment of Former Pres. Bush

On the Arrest of Former Pres. Bush

Ladies and Gentlemen, The President of the United States

My fellow Americans, I come before you today to announce that, as I speak, soldiers are moving in to arrest a group of suspected terrorists who may have been involved in significant attacks against the United States, killing thousands of innocent people, for the purpose of instituting significant changes in the American form of government.

I have placed former President George Herbert Walker Bush and several members of the Bush Administration on the list of enemy combatants, and ordered the government to either kill or capture them at the earliest opportunity. Many of these people, including former President Bush himself, as well as Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld, and Alberto Gonzales, are already in custody and are being shipped to a secure overseas location for questioning.

My actions are justified because I, as President of the United States, determined that these people are a threat. I do not need any warrants, and I do not need to submit my findings to any body or review. I assure you that my team has gone over the evidence carefully and we have assured ourselves that these findings warrant significant concern for the safety of the American people that justify our action.

The evidence for these suspicions has been floating on the internet for years, among several organizations and individuals who hold that the 9/11 attacks were performed by government agents for the purpose of creating fear, which would allow them to eliminate many of the protections and liberties we had enjoyed for over two hundred years.

I want to add that I do not believe that any of this so-called evidence has any real merit. There are, I think, rational explanations for everything that these people claim to be evidence of such a conspiracy. Some of their claims are even blatantly false and the rest does not point in the direction where they think it does.

However, this is evidence still stands on much firmer footing than the previous administration used to attack Iraq or to arrest many of the people that it sent to prison as suspected terrorists. If there is a one percent chance that these accusations could be true, then I have a duty to act as if they are certain. Former Vice President Cheney himself established this principle. How would it look if, ten years from now, we find out that these claims were true, and that my administration ignored the warning signs? We cannot have that.

Furthermore, I can guarantee that when these detainees are subject to the same treatment that they imposed on those that they captured and imprisoned, they will be more than happy to confess their crimes, and to give me information on other attacks that they had been plotting. With that information, I will be able to stand in front of you for years to come to brag about the fact that my actions have thwarted future attacks and kept you safe. I expect you to be appropriately grateful.

I particularly expect to hear no complaints coming from the Republican Party or those who supported it. After all, you created this form of government. All of these actions are perfectly legal. My Attorney General assures me that these actions have been fully consistent with the laws that the House and the Senate passed and that the former President Bush signed or is consistent with the executive orders that Bush signed that Congress left unchallenged.

Some people will undoubtedly start speaking of impeachment. However, impeachment is only for high crimes and misdemeanors, and I certainly have not committed any of those.

Besides, my party controls a majority in the House and Senate, so, unless somebody finds the packaged remains of young children in my freezer, there's not much of a chance of impeachment.

We all know that the American system of government is one that impeaches the President only if he is a member of the opposing party, in which case the most trivial reasons are considered just cause for removing him from office. Whereas, if the President is of the same party that controls the House and Senate, that no infraction warrants even so much as an investigation into wrongdoing.

I also want you to know that our investigation has revealed that there were numerous communications between the former Bush Administration and the organization called Fox News. In fact, Fox News appears to have served as the propaganda arm of this conspiracy to attack America. Therefore, as I speak, federal agents are at the headquarters of Fox News and are rounding up the leaders of that organization. They, too, will be questioned as a part of our diligent efforts to prevent any future attacks against America.

We also have the lists of those who contributed to the Republican campaigns to promote fear as a way of manipulating the American people into endorsing their attempts to replace our former system of government with one of their own design. We are immediately placing the list of donors on the 'no fly' list. Plus, we are going over the information we have received through government surveillance activities in order to determine which of these should be arrested and also hauled off to foreign prisons for interrogation.

I will also confess that I have an ulterior motive to taking this action. I abhor the destruction of freedom - the violation of the most fundamental principles of liberty and justice - that the previous administration engineered while it was in office. They represent the worst period in American history. We went from the shining beacon of liberty and justice to the world to its worst enemy, and huge segments of the population cheered the result.

As your new President, I could have signed executive orders repealing many of their excesses, and asked the Congress to repeal those laws. However, if I had done that, I fear that the Republican leadership would have immediately launched into a campaign saying that I am soft on terrorists. They will get their political machine revved up to frighten you until you are huddled in your houses in fear willing to grant the last ounce of liberty that you have left to another Republican regime.

I needed to convey to the American people just how abhorrent the policies of the American people were. I decided that the best way to do this would be to show you just what a person could do with those powers if he wanted to.

Besides, there is a certain amount of moral appropriateness to what I have done. It has long been said that you can tell the difference between a just and an unjust law by determining whether you are willing to endure that which you force others to endure. Now, we get to see if the former Republican leadership is willing to accept the rules that they thought were appropriate to impose on others.

They are the ones who created a system where people can be taken from their homes, locked up indefinitely, and given harsh interrogation on the weakest evidence - or no evidence other than a Presidential suspicion that the accused might be up to something. Were they, indeed, doing unto others what they would have others do undo them? The best way to answer that question is to actually do unto them what they were willing to do unto others and to see how they like it. If they truly believe that they have not perpetrated immoral and unjust laws, I should not be getting any complaints from them.

Nor should I be getting any complaints from those American people who continued to support that regime, up to and including the last election.

These are the principles of government that you voted for and supported with your cash and your volunteer labor. If you wish to complain to the author of these abuses, I recommend you look in the mirror.

I still have three and a half years in this position before the next election - and I have my attorney general looking into what the President can do when it comes to holding elections. The precedent established by the previous Administration says that the power of the President extends to denying several key pieces of the Constitution. If the President, in times of war or national emergency, can suspend the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments to the Constitution, then clearly I have the power to suspend those provisions that call for elections every two years - at least until this emergency passes.

You enacted this legislation because you were afraid. You thought that these laws would protect you. Look closely at what these laws can truly accomplish.

Do you feel safe yet?

If not, I'm prepared to go even further to help to defend you.

Until then, good night, and God bless the United States of America.

Note: The above is parody and not meant to actually endorse or recommend the policies listed. There was once a time when I was certain that no reasonable person would think that anything like the actions listed above were a good idea - at least not in America. Recent history has told me not to underestimate the level of tyranny that the American people would be willing to accept.