A Leak on the Mayflower

Help me out here: I want more than anything to write about Karl Rove, but I can’t figure out how to make it relate to life in Plymouth.
Sure, I know, my columns are only loosely connected to Plymouth in the first place, but I have to try.


Did you hear the one about Karl Rove on the Mayflower?
Yeah, he was coming over from England in 1620 and the ship sprang a leak.
Karl had nothing to do with it!
Myles Standish was there though too, and said if anyone on his ship was involved in the leak, he’d personally throw them overboard.
John Billington, spokesperson for Myles Standish, calmed the crew down by assuring them that he had specifically spoken with Karl about the leak and had been assured that Rove knew nothing about it whatsoever.
Besides, Billington said, the ship itself was not exactly new, not what you would normally think of as ‘seaworthy’, and was leaking like a sieve before this latest leak was noticed.
Selectperson-in-Waiting William Bradford wrote in his journal that the whole leak business was the fabrication of a group of disgruntled indentured servants who wanted their own plots of land in the New World. “That”, he wrote, “and the usual kind of hi-jinks you can expect when you’re cooped up for an extended period of time on a floating cesspool”.
Bradford also argued that Rove never really did anything specifically illegal.
Marine Law is very clear about people who deliberately cause a boat to leak: to be thrown overboard for leaking, the law states that you need to deliberately cause the leak, know that the leak will likely cause the boat to sink, and not care.
“How could Karl not care if the boat sank,” Bradford asked, rhetorically. “He was on the boat in the middle of the ocean, he had to care. Therefore even if he had inadvertently caused the leak he should not be thrown overboard.”
When later investigations revealed that Rove had in fact been at least aware of the leak, and had said nothing about it, Standish-spokesperson Billington told the crew that awareness of a leak and responsibility for a leak, were not the same thing.
Asked if Rove would now be thrown overboard, because he had at the very least been ‘involved’ with the leak, Billington said that he could not comment.
“We have ongoing leak here”, Billington angrily replied, “and it would inappropriate of me to comment on the seriousness of this leak until the boat sinks, or the leaking stops.”
At a later meeting with the indentured servants on Social Security, Standish himself, when asked, clarified his position, stating that anyone responsible for sinking the Mayflower would be removed from the Mayflower, provided of course that it was physically possible to remove someone if and when the ship was underwater.
“In my experience it is rare to find anyone on a ship that has already sunk,” Standish said in his matter-of-fact way, and flashing his famous grin. “Generally everyone gets off the boat while it is sinking, and some –following the rodent model, long before that.”
“But let me assure the future American people that, if and when the leaking is completed,” Standish continued, “and the ship is completely underwater, anyone still on board, and found guilty of a crime, will not be allowed to stay.”

So you see, it’s hopeless: big time politics and small-town life just don’t mix.
I wish they did: Plymouth can be so provincial.