Musings

Some of you may have seen the Clinton/Obama struggle seen through the prism of Frank Herbert’s DUNE courtesy of Snarkyboys.com via Walter Jon Williams www.walterjonwilliams.blogspot.com. (I’m not linking to the Snarky Boys because I’ve been searching for their website and keep getting an error message and I don’t want to pass it on to any readers. If anybody has the correct address for the Boys, please share it with the class.) Anyway, I’m going to reproduce it here

The Dune Theory of Democratic Politics, Revised

We were wrong; Barack Obama is the the Democratic Party’s Kwisatz Haderach. He is the shortening of the way, the one who shall give meaning to our lives and make our planet anew.

Like Paul Muad’Dib, his youth was shaped by the untimely loss of his father, who was not of this land. He has been rigorously trained, and recently endured a painful test at the hands of a Bene Gesserit Witch. He achieved a surprise victory in his first combat and it is said that his greatest power is his voice. By some reckonings, he has come before his time.

His enemies consider him a lightweight and dismiss his followers as religious fanatics, prone to chanting his name over and over. Though he has inherited powerful advisers, his wife is counted as a liability.

His true enemy is accused of launching a preemptive war to secure a precious resource in a desert land. Though this enemy has now left the stage, he has been succeeded by a battle-tested champion. Soon, they shall meet in single combat, and the victor shall take the reins of power.

So, on Thursday morning Ty Frank and I were chatting over cups of coffee and I happened to mention that it sure would have been nice if Bush and the NeoCons had read DUNE before they started on this Quixotic mission to remake Iraq. And we were off to the races. We started riffing over how Iraq could be brought to a satisfactory conclusion a la DUNE. I said Bush would have to go to Iraq expecting a victory, and end up captured and have to offer one of the twins. To Muqtada al Sadr, Ty sang out, and I had to struggle to keep from doing a spit take with coffee.

So, now every time I hear some talking head pontificating about old Muqtada, and start to giggle, though god knows he’s no laughing matter.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 30th, 2008 at 3:14 pm and is filed under life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.