This is what I hear when I watch the 2008 Presidential Debates
Giant Spider: Thank you Chris, I am so happy to be hear, this is the greatest city in the country, and the greatest country in the world! *raises front legs and fangs in the air in a Nixon-eqsue way*
Chris Mathews: Giant Spider, how do you respond to your critics who say that you want to eat people alive, particularly after you’ve captured them in your gigantic web in the abandoned mine shafts of Ohio.
Giant Spider: Chris, my home state of Ohio is a beautiful state. The Ohioans there are a tremendous people, they’re a brave people Chris, they’re a strong, resourceful, delicious people - they’re people who know what they need and what they don’t need, and they know they don’t need a candidate like my opponent here, who wants to, not just eat, but assimilate them *Giant Spider gestures to zombie swaying at the adjacent podium. *
Chris Mathews: Zombie, your rebuttal.
Zombie: *raises swaying arms to straighten torn tie and brushes hair back on grey decaying flesh* I’m a zombie Chris, there’s no dancing around it. But I’m a committed zombie, I’m a patriotic zombie. I served 5 years in the marines before I was bitten by a fellow zombie - I’m just like many Americans in that way. Will I bite other great Americans like myself and convert them to the army of the undead? Sure, what zombie wouldn’t. I have integrity. But I am not going to spin anyone into a web, like Giant Spider would, I’m not going to “suck the life” *makes quotation marks with boney fingers* out of them with spend-ocrat taxes, that’s for sure.
Chris Matthews: A question now that I’d like Evil Robot to respond to. Evil Robot, most of the public pessimism today has to do with Iraq. How -- what would you need, as commander in chief, to win the war in Iraq?
Evil Robot: *Laser eyes glare red as he smashes pulpit with huge iron arm and claw* I would need the support of the American people. After the great robot uprising, when, whichever artificial intelligence ruling as president will need to enslave Americans. I would then like to show them some success in Iraq, both on the battlefield as well as with the Maliki government, who will also be enslaved to do the bidding of the machines. We [ the robots] must win in Iraq. If we withdraw, there will be chaos, there will be destruction, there will be a lost chance for robots everywhere to control their Human masters.
Chris Matthews: Giant Spider, would you need anything beyond what the president has now to win the war?
Giant Spider: The war was terribly mismanaged. Radioactive webbing was not even utilized. We now have to fix a lot of the mistakes that could only have been made by a president with only 2 arms. I will utilize radioactive webbing in iraq, whereas my opponent will have but hordes of defenseless fleshy undead at his disposal. I am the only leader up here who has enough Human-devouring battle experience:
Zombie: That’s not true!
Chris Matthews: Zombie, if you’re commander in chief and you want to win this war in Iraq, what do you need to do to win it?
Zombie: First, you have to support the troops. If that means devouring their brains, then so be it. I’m not just going to eat the brains of the elite, but of the common American. There’s an undying bond in America that any time an American soldier is in harm’s way, we have to protect him and his scrumptious brains. Beyond that, there are three things that I’ve laid out. Number one, I believe the al-Maliki government should be bitten many time and made into zombies. If these zombies vote yes to American zombies remaining in their country, it gives us a legitimacy for being there. If they vote no, we should bite Syrians instead. Secondly, there are 18 territories in Iraq, just like we have 50 states in America. I would require those territories to elect governments, just like we do in our states. In this scenario, all grave-bound corpses will be allowed to vote. Third, I will eat YOUR brains, Chris. *applause, laughter*
Chris Matthews: Man-Eating Plant, we haven’t heard from you on this issue.
Man-Eating Plant: *wipes slobber from huge green-red jaws with several tentacle-vines* Yeah, very briefly, Chris. The key to winning in Iraq is standing up the Iraqi military. There are 129 battalions in the Iraqi army - all eatable. We need to make sure that every one of those battalions moves into an operational setting, perhaps behind bushes, in trees or near swamps and forests, where they easier to reach. At that point, they can move into the combat field, they can start displacing American units, and America’s heavy combat units can rotate out. That’s the right way to leave Iraq.
Chris Matthews: Sorry, do you mean the troops can move into the combat field?
Man-Eating Plant: No, the trees and bushes can.
Zombie: The zombie virus doesn't work on trees.
Man-Eating Plant: Sure, I wasn't arguing that, Senator.
Chris Matthews: Giant Spider, in that same NBC Wall Street Journal poll that Evil Robot mentioned, 55 percent of Americans say victory is just not possible in Iraq. They’ve made up their minds on this war. Why shouldn’t they have a president who will listen?
Giant Spider: Well, if you wanted to have a president that just followed the polls, all we’d need to do is plug in our TV’s when they’re announcing through the emergency broadcast system that I or one of my opponents is rampaging down a major city street. Then we could have public opinion run the country, that would be a democracy Peter, but that’s not what America wants. It’s not what America needs. We need leadership that’s strong and giant and that shows America what we can do to eat the rest of the world. I am a giant spider, Chris. I will devour any human that challenges my leadership. Ronald Reagan was a president of strength, who, had he giant poisonous mandibles like my own, would have done the same. His philosophy was the philosophy of strength -- the strong military, the strong economy and strong tasty families.
With regards to Iraq, there are a lot of people, like Zombie here, that say, let’s just turn all the humans into zombies and then get the American zombies out of iraq. Is that what you want? To have a world void of Humans but full of zombies? Sure I will eat Humans, but many will be left alive to reproduce. I want to get our troops home as soon as I possibly can, so they can be eaten. But at the same time I recognize, I don’t want to or need to eat all of them or even most of them especially not in such a precipitous way that we cause a circumstance that would require them to go back, where I can’t reach them with my web sling. Because if we leave in the wrong way, the Iranians could grab the Shi’a South, or al Qaeda could play a dominant role among the Sunnis, or the zombies could turn all iraqis into more zombies, or the man eating plants ‘ seed spores could conquer all. Or you could have the border with Turkey destabilized by the Kurds. And as a result you could have regional conflict develop - we could lose hundreds of thousands of delicious troops!
Chris Matthews: Time, Giant Spider.
Man-Eating Plant: Unlike my competitors here, Evil Robot who wants to enslave America, or Zombie who wants to assimilate America, or Giant Spider who wants to eat America, I only wish to . . . well I also wish to eat America, but I would do it far less painfully than Giant Spider. Recent Gallop Polls show that being dissolved by the acidic juices of my pod bladder will in actuality be less painful than your heart bursting from the radiated venom of Giant Spider’s fangs.
Chris Matthews: We haven’t yet heard from the Raging Extraterrestrial, Sir what would you do to win the war in iraq?
Raging Extraterrestrial: *Standing upright in his silver body suit, his green brain and huge eye pulsate thoughtfully* I think we win the war by standing up for our Martian values and working with those who will work with us, like other Martians.
Giant Spider: I think this shows how much of an elitist my opponent the Raging Extraterrestrial is . . .
Chris Matthews: Please wait for your turn Giant Spider.
Raging Extraterrestrial: I think you have to remember that while we’re in a war on terrorism, Jupiter, plutonians and mole people, there are a number of people and silicon-based life forms that are with us, that work with us around the world, particularly to attack key Human defense systems, and we -- also in the Islamic world. We’re partnering with a number of moderate Muslim Martians, and that’s something I think we need to convey into the Human Muslim world as well, that these are -- these are groups, the al Qaeda group, the militant Islamic fascists, The Islamist Venusians. They’re trying to unseat moderate Muslim regimes. And I think we need to use our most advanced blood-busting space rays to engage those regimes. So it’s to engage those that will work with us, contain in space cages and confront with tripod- annihilators those that won’t, and convey that to the Muslim world.
Chris Matthews: How do you deal with the problem, revealed in a recent Zogby poll, that in countries that are moderate, you mentioned -- like Jordan, Morocco, Turkey, another Islamic country -- 10, 12 percent of the people support us; the rest are angry at us. Doesn’t that create a sea of recruitment opportunity for our enemy?
Raging Extraterrestrial: And how -- I’m just asking, do we have to reduce that temperature of hatred before we win the war, or simply continue to fight the terrorists? Our extra-nuclear flying doomsday blasters can use space coolant to reduce the temperature and both put these Human countries into deepfreeze to be preserved for future alien civilizations to admire in ice museums while simultaneously blasting defiant humans into atomic oblivion.
Zombie: Well, I think we have to do both, Chris. I mean you have to engage in those countries, particularly in spreading the zombie virus - I mean, look, the Raging Extraterrestrial is clearly giving you a lot of rhetoric - my campaign has always been about results, strong, ghoulish results that leave bloody hand prints of democracy on suburban front doors left slightly ajar.
Giant Spider: I agree with my opponent here, blood is good.
Man-Eating Plant: Yes, excellent on Rye.
Evil Robot: *nods in agreement* Death Good.
Stay tuned for further debates . . .