USS Landfill

What we need today, are more aircraft carriers.
We could all use our own aircraft carrier.
I know I could.
When things go wrong, at home or abroad, an aircraft carrier is the perfect place to end the day, on a positive note.
Right now, if I am in a bad mood, or am arguing with my wife, I go to the dump: I find whatever trash is available, bag it up with as much noise as possible, and announce loudly that I am going to the dump.
“Where are you going,” Mary still asks me, turning her head sideways, and giving me that ‘whatever you say I’m not buying it look’. To which I reply, proudly, “to the dump.”
Don’t get me wrong, the dump is nice: there are always a few other unappreciated husbands there, to commiserate with. The dump is a place where men are men, with no apologies.
But I can’t help thinking how much better it could be, if I could take my trash and troubles and make a perfect landing on the deck of a large aircraft carrier a few miles offshore, in Cape Cod Bay, preferably to the cheers of hundreds of unappreciated husbands.
Of course I don’t have an aircraft carrier at my disposal – that’s just a fantasy.
But George does.
George has a dozen or so aircraft carriers, standing by, awaiting his instructions.
But he needs to get moving.
That’s one of the big differences between the dump and, say, the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln. At the dump, as long as it’s a weekend, or a day beginning with T, you know you can just drive on in – no questions asked.
But you can’t just come cruising onto an aircraft with your bags of trash, anytime you want.
You have to let people know, in advance, that you’re coming.
They have to get the carrier turned into the wind, so that the deck won’t be rolling all about, and so you can’t smell the trash that other politicians have dumped.
You have to have a band, photographers, and a speech ready to go.
And Lord knows, you have to have something important to say when you get there.
When I go to the dump I ask, ‘where do I put this cardboard,”, or “do you take old Commodore computers”, or “hey, are you really throwing that thing away?”
But that kind of banter won’t wash, on a carrier.
On the carrier, you’ve got to have something important to claim: something that will fit on a 100 foot banner, such as:
“Mission Accomplished,” or
“You’re doing a great job, Brownie”, or
“If someone in my administration is leaking information, I want to know”.
Poor George: three years ago, when he made that dramatic ‘tail-hook’ landing in San Diego harbor, he was really onto something.
Imagine how different things would have been, if he had made more dramatic landings on aircraft carriers.
Since that big day however, the best he has been able to do is a few low passes, in Air Force 1, dumping re-election leaflets over the half-baked crowd at the Daytona 500: talk about ‘preaching to the choir!’
If I were Karl Rove, I would have had all the Presidential Press Conferences on aircraft carriers.
You fly in, shake a few hands, proclaim some kind of great victory, and then “sorry, no time to answer questions, got to fly!”
And if the press tries to follow, rudely yelling out their questions, whoops: there’s a little thing called the ocean in the way.
Poor Israel: they could use their own aircraft carrier now too, big time.
Word is that the plan was all set for Elmud Olmert , the Israeli Prime Minister, to do just that about three weeks ago.
Olmert was going to leave Israel on a Tuesday morning – announcing to his family (and the press) that he was just going to take the trash to the dump, and then secretly fly to San Diego. There he was going to join President Bush for another dramatic landing on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln – commemorating the third anniversary of the end of the Iraq War.
Instead of “Mission Accomplished,” in honor of the Israeli victory in Lebanon the big banner was supposed to read, “A Lasting Solution” (courtesy of Condoleeza Rice).
Everything was in place: the banner was printed, Olmert had his own flight suit, and it looked like Hezbollah was on the run.
But where was the aircraft carrier?
Turns out the USS Abraham Lincoln was in the Persian Gulf, because things were getting a little out of hand there.
No problem: we have dozens of aircraft carriers, right? Well, yes and no.
We’ve got the carriers, but they are otherwise occupied.
The USS Nimitz was in the ‘theater’, as they say, but was busy watching Kim Jong Il in North Korea.
The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower was stuck in the mud of the Rio Grande River, serving as the headquarters for the border patrol.
The USS Carl Vinson (he was the guy who sang ‘Blue Suede Shoes, right?) was still in New Orleans, serving as a hotel for homeless victims of Hurricane Katrina.
The USS Theodore Roosevelt was booked for a Congressional Cruise and Barbeque.
The USS George Washington was on an extended cruise in the Arctic Ocean, still looking for proof that Global Warming is left-wing propaganda.
The USS Ronald Reagan was a few miles off San Francisco, protecting Americans from gay marriage.
The USS Harry Truman was in the Mediterranean, keeping a close eye on just about everyone in the MidEast.
And the USS Enterprise had somehow made its way up the Mississippi and was keeping a close eye on all of us.
Turns out that all 12 of our aircraft carriers were busy elsewhere.
Like I said, you can never have too many aircraft carriers.
Poor George, I can sympathize with him.
When the press is after him, asking what his plans are, what’s going on in Iraq, without an aircraft carrier there’s only one thing he can do, one place left to go to get away from it all.
And they’ll even take all of George’s stuff there: the old plastic banners, the paper speeches, the old “W” decals, even the old flight suits.
I just hope he remembered to get his new sticker.