The Foreign Policy Skunk
by US politics have always been questionable at best, but our foreign policy has never been as much of a lightning rod as it is under the Bush Administration. In this satirical piece, we put a new spin on what’s fast becoming the newest “third rail” in politics.
The American garden of mediocrity is in full bloom, showing off its most precious weed – rose-colored glasses, while the scent of the foreign policy skunk weighs heavy in the Washington air. If upon the arrival of spring a man’s thoughts turn to baseball and love, that special time for politicians is the summer where they can do the most damage since Joe Taxpayer’s on vacation.
Ah, the romance of Washington always gets me choked up, or is it the smell of the foreign policy skunk hampering my free breathing? He’s a busy little guy and arguably more popular than Socks the cat or Millie the dog were in their heyday. He’s sprayed all over the news these days and got every politicians’ underwear in an uproar over at least eight time zones – and that’s on a slow day.
But who or what is this foreign policy skunk, running around and musking up tempers from Russia to the Beltway? We knew he was in the garden when he started spraying the Palestinians back in June, and everyone in the Middle East complained because they were downwind and received the full brunt of his “I’m here!” announcement. He didn’t become a problem for Washington until mid July after spraying the Lebanese and we found ourselves upwind in a toxic cloud without tomatoes. There’s an old joke about “lighting a match” around bad smells, but that didn’t work. Much to our chagrin, our neighbors to the east started to politely ask us to control our skunk. “He’ll run out of spray, just let him get it out of his system – we really think it’s indigestion and you’re misinterpreting the scent.” We didn’t believe it any more than you did over there, but it was something neighborly to say with a false level of comfort.
After approximately five weeks of waiting for the foreign policy skunk to run out of spray, some punk kids in their neighborhood decided to take matters into their own hands. Armed only with Katyusha slingshots, they leaned over the wall, took aim, and nailed him dead in the sprayer, hoping to make him stop. The skunk went ballistic and began taking revenge on everyone over multiple time zones for the indignity suffered to his sprayhood.
Everyone is up in arms, begging and pleading for us to control our foreign policy skunk, and now we’re told by leadership if we get the kids who shot skunky and send them to juvenile detention hall, our odorous friend will calm down. Otherwise, removing skunky’s ability to spray would leave him defenseless and create a scent free vacuum. I’m sure all our friends in the Middle East would enjoy not having to purchase tomatoes by the truckload – the money could be better spent on reforms in their own countries, or is that too logical of a possible assessment?
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