^{Guns and Butter: A Play in One-Fifth of an Act}

"We didn't teach them how to fish. We gave them the fish. We didn't teach them how to slaughter the cow to get the butter. We gave them the butter."
- Rush Limbaugh, explaining global poverty 8/30/06

Bush: We can no longer wait for these folks to discover the butter in their cows. The choice is simple. Some may prefer death and tyranny, but I think the time has come to show everyone in the freedom-loving world the butter in the cow.

Foreign man with cow: There is no butter in the cow. You see, butter comes from ...

Bush: Oh sure, there are those who want to pretend the butter isn't there, the head-in-the- sand crowd. Good, decent, patriotic Americans know the facts and the facts say the butter is in the cow.

Foreign Man: Maybe I could show you how ...

Bush: Let's not confuse the issue. I have good intelligence and it tells me that the butter is in the cow. Back in Texas, we know all about cows. We're the cow-people. There are those, the al-Qaeda types and the blame-America-first crowd, that want to say there's no butter in the cow. We know where the butter is, it's in the area in the cow, the north and south and around in there.

Cow: Er...?

Foreign Man: Please leave my cow out of this.

Bush: This is a slam dunk. Maybe some of your liberal folks, your big government types want starvation and death, but it's time to slaughter the cow and let the butter flow. It's time to take a bold stand against evil and usher in a new era of butter spreading over formerly dry lands, an era of freedom and fat, sleepy people.

Foreign Man: I don't want my cow slaughtered.

Bush: You'll be happy with some butter in ya.

Foreign Man: Actually, I don't particularly care for butter.

Bush: Well, there ya go. You see, you take someone who's never had butter and you feed him butter and, one, he's not hungry, he's full o' butter and, two, he doesn't hate America anymore.

Foreign Man: It's meat, you know. You slaughter a cow to get meat.

Bush: Are you trying to undermine my will? Because I know my will and it won't be undermined. Why do you hate America's freedom?

Foreign Man: I don't hate America. I just don't think you're free to slaughter my cow.

Bush: That's enough waiting. Maybe some of your appeasement-types would sit around and take orders from foreigners, but that's not the way we do things. I won't give you time to hide your butter.

Cow: Grrrr....

Foreign Man: It's milk, you know. Butter comes from milk and you don't have to slaughter the cow to get it.

Bush: Don't worry, this'll be easy.

Bush calls in an air strike. The cow is immediately destroyed, along with 145 other cows, 3,276 bystanders, 6 villages and 2 hospitals.

Foreign Man: Oh my god!

Bush: Hey, nobody said this would be easy.

Foreign Man: You're a monster! An absolute monster!

Bush: See, I knew you hated America. This is your fault anyway. Walking around with your un-slaughtered cow.

Foreign Man: So where's the butter? Point me to this butter.

Dick Cheney strides in, carrying a bloodstained bundle of cloth.

Cheney: Sir, it took 135 billion taxpayer dollars in no-bid contracts but these people I don't really know at Halliburton managed to produce this butter.

Foreign Man: That's a bloody chunk of cow! You maniac! It's not even butter!

Cheney, hiding bundle behind his back: Why are you people so fixated on butter? Who said anything about butter? This is really all for your own good.

Foreign Man wails.

Bush: Things really are going well.

Cheney: Yes they are, sir.

Bush: Pretty soon this fella will realize that.

Cheney: Any minute, sir.

Curtain.