Byzantium's Shores: chronicling the misadventures of an overalls-clad hippie

ATTACK OF THE PRESIDENTS, part two....

INTERIOR: The Great Throne Room, Rigel IX.

Enter HSUB EROG, Emperor of the Nine Stars, and WEHTTAM SENOJ, his Grand Councilor. EROG is very annoyed.

EROG: I can't believe you let that happen.

SENOJ: I told you the microphone was on, Sire.

EROG: Who let that reporter in, anyway? Haven't I said repeatedly that I don't like him?

SENOJ: Yes, Sire, but I confess I did not think that you would refer to him as a "posterioric aperture" while the microphone was on.

EROG: Well, I'll wear the darker-colored robes in public for a while. They look more casual; that should calm everyone down.

SENOJ: I'm sure….(but he rolls all eight of his eyes)

EROG: So where were we?

SENOJ: Well, your Campaign Minister—

EROG: Not that. The Presidents of the United States, Earth.

SENOJ: Oh. Well, I think we left off with Presidents Mitchell and Nance.

EROG: Yes. Who came after them?

SENOJ: After them came President James Marshall. His administration was notable at first for having the nation's first female Vice President, a woman named Kathryn Bennett. But then the President took a diplomatic trip to another Earth nation, called "Russia". There he announced a broad-sweeping shift in policy toward terrorists.

EROG: To give in to their every demand?

SENOJ: No, that's your policy.

EROG: Yes….I've been meaning to rethink that; it doesn't seem to be working….

SENOJ: Uh-huh. The strange thing is that President Marshall's aircraft was actually highjacked by terrorists while he was on his way back to the United States.

EROG: Oh, no!

SENOJ: Oh, yes.

EROG: Did he get to his escape pod in time?

SENOJ: Yes, but he didn't take it.

EROG: What?

SENOJ: He stayed on board the aircraft to fight the terrorists.

EROG: You're joking.

SENOJ: No.

EROG: Amazing. That's the kind of thing we need here!

SENOJ: You don't have to tell me…

EROG: What?

SENOJ: Nothing.

EROG: So did his military send other aircraft to blow up the President's plane, since such a vital piece of technology should not be allowed into enemy hands?

SENOJ: Fighters were dispatched, but they didn't shoot down the plane. Strange.

EROG: Very. Did the Vice President at least seize power, as the President was under extreme forms of duress?

SENOJ: Strangely, no. Despite the fact that a Defense Minister pressured her to do just that, nothing of the sort was done.

EROG: That seems reckless, doesn't it?

SENOJ: Well, no more reckless than your attendance of that nightclub last week—

EROG: I told you not to bring that up again.

SENOJ: Yes, sire.

EROG: So, what happened to Marshall? Did the terrorists kill him?

SENOJ: No, they failed to do so – despite the fact that they killed a whole bunch of people on that plane. Very bloodthirsty, and yet when they had the President in their grasp, they talked and babbled until he was able to free himself and kill them.

EROG: You're joking.

SENOJ: Not at all. The President actually threw some of them out the plane's back door. Very impressive performance, almost as if he had acted in what the Earthers call "action movies".

EROG: I imagine the Americans would like that in the President.

SENOJ: (under his breath) Wouldn't hurt here, either—

EROG: What?

SENOJ: Nothing. After Marshall got the terrorists off the plane, it turned out the plane was mortally damaged, so a mid-air rescue was attempted. But that's when a traitorous security agent tried to kill the President one last time, but the President managed to get off the plane at the last possible instant, leaving the traitor aboard to die when the plane went down into the water. Strangely, the plane's crash was caught on film, but it looks very fake. Some think it was actually a visual effect, and not a very good one.

EROG: Interesting. So what happened to the President? I imagine he was re-elected in a landslide. A President who killed terrorists with his own hands? He'd win for sure!

SENOJ: He was actually defeated, sire.

EROG: NO!

SENOJ: Yes….it was a very close election, but President Marshall was undone by three scandals. The first one came when he spoke before a meeting of what the Earthers call "The United Nations" – it seems he wanted to go to war against some country, no one else wanted to, and he said at one point, "I'll kill them the way I killed the terrorists on my airplane! I'll kill anyone who gets in my way!"

EROG: The Americans didn't care for that kind of political rhetoric?

SENOJ: Well, it made him look a bit unstable. The second scandal came when it was revealed that before becoming President, Marshall had had an affair with an Amish woman named Rachel. Marshall denied it, but Rachel had pictures of herself with a man who looked very much like a younger President Marshall.

EROG: Wait. The Amish took pictures? I thought—

SENOJ: She painted them, actually. Very talented woman.

EROG: I see….and the last scandal?

SENOJ: Ah, that involved Vice President Bennett. Six months before the election, she decided to legally change her name to Alex Forrest. All this allowed Marshall's opponent, a kindly widower from the enclave known as "Wisconsin", to win the election.

EROG: These Earthers are very strange.

SENOJ: Yes. Do you want to hear about Marshall's successor?

EROG: Tomorrow. Right now I have to go meet with our Minister of Linguistics. It seems that an amphibious subspecies on Deneb III is using verbal constructions like "Mesa okeyday" and "Ex-squeeze me." We may have to dispatch the fleet to bomb them, if they don't knock it off.

SENOJ: You wear a heavy crown, Sire.

EROG: Very heavy….

To Be Continued….