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It's time to quit picking on Fundamentalists. They've had a rough year -- the Bakker and Swaggert scandals, Oral Roberts' continued success at making a fool of himself, America's general refusal to turn Oliver North into a hero, and now this.
We once had a Baptist Sunday School teacher in the White House. But he was not of sufficient moral stature to please the Fundamentalists, who instead supported Ronald Reagan. He may have been divorced, and a product of sin-crazed Hollywood, but he said all the right things -- prayer in schools, put creation in textbooks, etc.
Alas, it turns out that Ronald and Nancy Reagan have betrayed the sacred cause by dabbling with the occult. They have been consulting astrologers.
Actually, we should have figured this out some time ago. It's the only explanation for many of Reagan's actions. I can imagine it now.
Nancy, the press office forget to send over my script
for today. I'll never remember whether I'm supposed to say
Good morning
or Pleased to meet you.
What am I going to
do?
Don't worry, Ron. We'll manage.
She ruffles
through the paper. Here we go. Jean Dixon says
Stand by
those who have stood by you, no matter what others say.
Resist outside pressures. Continue with current outside
plans.
The President mulls that over for a moment. Good.
I'll get somebody to write another statement for me to say
that I'm still behind Ed Meese, whether the Justice
Department is falling apart or not. No matter how much he
embarrasses me, it would take a complete change of
character for him not to be standing by me, wouldn't
it?
Nancy nods as Ron continues. So I'd be resisting
outside pressures, too. Now, I need to continue with my
current outside plans. Must mean Central America. What's
our current plan there?
To force Noriega out in Panama, dear.
Well, I was thinking of Nicaragua when I was trying
to think of some place where we might have plans. Anyway,
we've frozen Panamanian funds here to put the squeeze on
Noriega. Except he must have barrels of money stuffed into
secret bank accounts for his retirement -- I'm sure
grateful that I'm an American, and my friends can openly
provide me a luxurious house when my time comes to step
down.
So perhaps a financial squeeze won't hurt Noriega,
but certainly will hurt the regular citizens of Panama, and
those are the people we need on our side.
But since Noriega used to be one of our
anti-Communist allies, maybe it's him I'm supposed to stand
by. That's the trouble with these horoscopes. They're even
worse than economists when it comes to giving you
confusing, incomprehensible, contradictory advice. But I'll
stand by Meese again.
Nancy nods approvingly, and the leader of the free world goes forth to perform his duties.
Since astrology has made it to the White House, what
might we see next? Michael Dukakis doesn't look like the
type who'd consult anything more exotic than a computer
print-out, but George Bush could be reasonably expected to
continue practicing what he once called economic
voodoo.
There they would be, gathered in the Oval Office with the gumbo pot cooking and headless chickens dripping in the background. While drums beat a hypnotic rhythm, an aide tends to the sacred snake, the Wall Street Takeover & Merger Python, which must be placated during this ceremony.
The President grabs a handful of needles. As the dolls are brought before him, he stabs with precision: the Plant Closing Notification effigy goes first, then the Organized Labor doll, followed by the Minimum Wage Increase manikin. And so it goes, through the darkness of a night of Voodoo Economics, while the python smiles approvingly after each gulp.
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