[The scene as the curtain rises: A young woman staggers into a police station. Her hair is a mess, her clothing is torn in places, and she is visibly bruised. One of her eyes is almost swollen shut. She is dragging an elegant handbag, but her grip on the purse strings is tenuous, at best. She staggers up to the desk sergeant.]
"Please, you've got to help me. I've been mugged."
"Certainly, Ma'am. Please follow me," the sergeant replies. He escorts her up a dingy flight of stairs to the detectives' area, and sees that she is comfortably seated. Because she's in such bad shape, he gets her a cup of coffee and introduces her to Detective Justin Farce, before returning to his post.
"What seems to be the trouble?" asks Farce gently.
"I think I've been mugged," she replies forlornly.
The detective rolls a form into a typewriter and begins asking her the standard questions.
"What is your name?"
"Connie Gress."
"OK, Mrs. Gress..."
"Actually, it's 'Miss.' "
"OK, Miss Gress..."
"Please, call me 'Con,' everyone does," she demurs.
"OK... Con... I'm going to ask you for all the details of the crime that you can remember. Anything you can recall will help us to do our job. Now, who was it that attacked you?"
The woman furrowed her brows. "Actually," she said haltingly, "I'm not really sure they attacked me..."
Detective Farce arched his eyebrows in disbelief. "But, you're..." he begins, and motions toward her bruises and ripped clothing.
Connie Gress looked down at herself, and sighed. "Well, that happened later."
"Why don't you start at the beginning and tell me what happened." Farce gave up on typing the form. He sat back, crossed his hands over his belly, and waited for her story.
"Well, I was trying to do my business, when I was jumped in a hallway by two guys. They forced me to give up what they wanted, and then they walked away. The worst part was there were like 16 people I thought were my friends standing around just to hold the coats of the two guys who were pestering me."
Detective Farce picked up the purse she had placed on his desk, and asked, "May I take a look to see if anything's missing?"
"Oh, sure. There's a lot in there -- it's bigger inside than it looks."
Farce opened the small evening bag, and was astonished to find that she was right. The second shock was that the purse was absolutely crammed with money. He quickly riffled through the bills, and exclaimed: "There's over a trillion dollars here!"
"Two trillion, actually." She slid the purse over, and checked quickly for herself. "No, it's all still here."
Farce's brain blew a few circuits. "So you're telling me that you have two trillion dollars on you, you 'think' you were mugged, and the muggers didn't touch any of it?"
"I know it sounds incredible," Miss Gress admitted. "But they took something far more valuable."
"What could be more valuable than..." Farce choked on the words again... "two trillion dollars?"
"They made me give up the Fourth Amendment."
"The Fourth Amendment?" echoed Farce, more puzzled than ever.
"Well, actually, they didn't make me give it up. They couldn't do that. You see, I'm heavily armed. Dig down to the bottom of the bag, you'll see."
Farce returned his attention to her handbag. Digging past the outrageous wads of bills, he found two objects at the bottom. He pulled the first out. It was a gigantic medieval shield, something a knight in full armor would carry into battle. He pulled it out by its straps, and slowly turned it over to reveal the text of the Constitution on the face of it. He noticed right away that in the midst of the Bill of Rights, the Fourth Amendment had indeed been blacked out. Crudely spray painted on top of it in blood-red letters was the phrase: "In Gonzales we trust."
Incredulously, he laid it aside on his desk. It barely fit.
He then gingerly drew out of her purse the remaining item. It was an enormous rifle -- but what a weapon! It looked like a science fiction movie prop -- like something out of Star Wars, or Men In Black. Somehow, though, Farce knew it was real, so he very carefully laid it on top of the shield. "What exactly is this?" he sternly asked Miss Con Gress.
"It's a 'Democratic Majority, Mark 2006,' " she helpfully explained.
"So let me get this straight," said the detective, trying to get some sort of grasp on the situation. "You've got an enormous Constitutional shield, you've got this deadly weapon -- the Democratic Majority -- and you still got mugged?"
"Well, actually, I guess it wasn't really a mugging at all. But the two guys really threatened me."
"Who were these two guys?" asked Farce suspiciously, somehow anticipating her answer.
"Bush and Cheney," she promptly replied, confirming his suspicions.
"But how could they threaten you when you had such a powerful weapon? And such defenses?" Farce asked, stupefied.
"Well, they said they were going to say mean things about me on the campaign trail."
"You gave up the Fourth Amendment just for politics?!?" the detective almost screamed at her.
"Well, yeah, that and the fact that my vacation was starting, and if I didn't do what they wanted, I might have had to cut it a few days short."
Farce just stared at her, absolutely speechless.
"Hey, don't look at me like that!" she protested. "I had to get home to start my vacation so I could tell everyone how horrible it is that the Iraqi Parliament is also on vacation." She pouted her lips, and looked like a stubborn 10-year-old girl.
"I'm sorry, but there was no crime committed here," pronounced Farce. "Unless... how did you get so bruised? Who hit you?"
"Well, the media beat me up pretty good, but it was my constituents who really did this number on me." She began crying, pathetically.
"You know, Miss Con Gress," the detective replied, quite obviously enraged, "there actually was a crime committed here.
"You mugged yourself. And, in doing so, you mugged the American people as well. I have absolutely no sympathy for you whatsoever.
"To be honest, you disgust me. Your job is supposed to be to stand up to such blatant rewriting of the Constitution. Please take your things and go.
"And one final word of advice -- you don't deserve to be carrying that weapon, and if you're not careful, the voters will take it away from you as easily as they gave it to you."
[The moral of this story is: A Democratic Majority is only a powerful weapon IF you actually pull the trigger.
MISCONGRESS indeed.]
[Here is the shameful official list of the Senate's "16 people I thought were my friends" (plus Lieberman, of course, making 17) who held Bush's coat and allowed this mugging to happen. Since they're all home for vacation during August, I encourage you to let them personally know what you think of their vote -- but only use profanity if you feel it absolutely necessary.
Oh, hell... go ahead and use profanity. They need to hear it. Loudly.]
Chris Weigant blogs at: ChrisWeigant.com