Hell's New Residents

I don't understand this at all, darlings.

All right, we're all on pins and needles awaiting the execution of Saddam Hussein, like a second Christmas in the same week. There's nothing that teaches a godless Muslim about the forgiveness and mercy of the obviously morally superior religion Christianity quite like hanging him. You can't make the point that "Murder is Unacceptable" (or "Thou shalt not kill" to Charleton Heston fans. How sick are they? Don't get me started on Cheston.) any clearer to a mass murderer than by killing him, thus proving that you're a better person than he is, one who would never kill someone. As that great Irish homo Oscar Wilde once said, "What a lesson for him. I trust he will profit by it."

As I sit here dictating this to Little Douglas, it is 6:30 PM PDT, December 29, 2006, and all the news programs are doing the Deathwatch Countdown for Saddy, who at this moment, is scheduled to depart in half an hour, though any air traveller since 9-11, a day of disaster in America that Saddam is being rightly punished for despite his having had nothing to do with it (No one was more disappointed by this than Saddy himself.) knows, departures can be subject to delays.

The only reason Stephanie Edwards isn't on TV at this moment, interviewing volunteers gluing the last few rose blossoms onto the gallows, is because she has been let go by KTLA for the crime of aging semi-naturally. Richard Simmons has been chosen Grand Marshall for the Saddam Death Procession. We have marching bands, helicopters showing us the Death Parade Route, kids dressed as Star Wars Storm Troopers marching about, and everyone just about soiling themselves in excitement over an execution. It's better than the Superbowl. (Which I'm told is great. I've never actually seen one. What do they do at them?)

Okay, drooling with joy over a person being killed I understand. I felt the same way when Delores Delgado drowned. She was a bitch, and Saddy had a number of rather large character flaws also. If he hadn't been a power-mad, mass-murdering, torturing dictator, he'd have made a good Golden Era studio head. I'd love to have seen him handle Bette Davis demanding better scripts, or firing Joan Crawford. Once Joan realized that Saddy was named in honor of sodomy (Oh, look at Little Dougie perk up at the computer!), she'd have been all over him like smog on the Los Angeles Marathon.

Here's what I do not understand: Why has the United States Government declared next Tuesday to be a National Day of Mourning for Saddam Hussein? If we liked him that much, why did we spend so much time, money, and American Lives to kill him? (More Americans have died in the Iraq War now, than in America on 9-11. Congratulations Dubya! You've beaten Osama's record! Good Going! Look out Hitler! Records are made to be broken.) I should get no mail just because Saddy's neckwear was too tight? It might be the day my annual fan letter arrives. My surviving fan (Hello!) isn't a spring tarantula. He or she may not have an extra day to wait for me to receive their love. When my last fan dies, will he or she get a National Day of Mourning, or a funeral at the National Cathedral? I don't think so.

(Speaking of which, why do we have a "National Cathedral"? The last time I looked, we were a secular country, not a Catholic Country. If we have become a Catholic Country let me know, so I can move someplace secular, like Vatican City, which used to be Catholic, but is now run by Nazis, excuse me, Former Nazis. It's not Herr Pope's fault that Heaven is Restricted. So do we have "National" buildings for other barbaric, antiquated belief systems? How's that National Mosque coming? I'm a Christian Scientist myself, except for all the absurd beliefs and practices. Where is our "National Reading Room"?)

On a more positive note, it was nice to see that novelist and Former President Gerald Ford was finally executed for the crime of pardoning Nixon, his specific crime being Watergate Cover-Up Accessory After-the Fact. Prior to usurping The White House, Ford was beloved for his widely-summarised work of fiction, The Warren Commission Report, a novel based on the Assassination of President Kennedy, but coming to a completely fictional conclusion involving an invented villain, like one of those episodes of Doctor Who where the Doctor visits a famous historical event, only to discover that the "Real Villains" were the Daleks or the Cybermen or Lee Harvey Oswald the Rabbit.

With Ford, you see the real difference between American Justice and Iraqi Justice. It took 32 years to convict and execute Ford for his crime. Saddy's gone from rathole-squatter to corpse in only 3 years. In fact, the news has just come through: Saddy's been hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that stabilization soon will be there. (Yes. This will stabilize Iraq. Another victory for Dubya. Will the Shi'it now hit the fan? Sunni or later.)

Ford's real legacy is establishing the precedent of appointing presidents instead of electing them. Gerry Ford was the first president appointed to the office. He got the presidency on a single vote: Nixon's. Yes, we let the man we were hounding from office for his crimes-beyond-number choose his own successor. Even Iraq didn't let Saddy choose his own successor. Had he done so, he wouldn't be swinging today. He'd be fat and sassy in San Clemente, with a presidential pardon and a book deal. (Judith Regan's gotta eat.) Our Supreme Court jumped on the precedent, and in 2000 appointed Dubya to be president, rather than do all that tiresome counting of the votes. After all, if The People were competent to elect a president, they'd be on the Supreme Court.

To be fair to Dubya, unlike Ford, he did receive more than one vote, many more, though still fewer than Al Gore received.

But if you ask me, the real criminal in the Ford Family was that evil bitch Betty. The Betty Ford Clinic is Satan's Cesspool! Trying to stop people from drinking? What infamy! What an atrocity! Get me a rope! And a vodka tonic, heavy on the vodka, just the slightest whisper of tonic. Thank you, darling.

But WHY did they hang James Brown? Papa's got a brand new bag, and they've put it over his head! Is he now the Hardest Working Man in Hell? Whitey has stuck it to the Black Man once again. Well celebrity hangings, like all other celebrity deaths, always come in 3s. And there's nothing on earth I like better than a well-hung man.

Except vodka.

Cheers darlings, those of you who have survived. Hang in there. (Sorry Saddy, but not very.)