Anchorman: Well, Doctor, you see, it’s been an especially stressful week.
Shrink: At home, you mean? Troubles with the wife? Kids?
Anchorman: No no, not at all. It’s these troubling fantasies. I just can’t shake them. Very little sleep, you know. Can’t concentrate…
Shrink: Would you like to share them?
Anchorman: Well, I suppose… it’s a bit embarrassing though. I mean…my thoughts about the president and all….
Shrink: The president? You mean, President Obama?
Anchorman: Well, yes…
Shrink: What about him?
Anchorman: I think he’s out to get me.
Shrink: You, personally?
Anchorman: Uh huh. Yes. Me, and many others.
Shrink: Tell me more…
Anchorman: Well, I was at home lying on the couch flipping channels, you know, trying to relax and, on the Military Channel there’s one of those old documentaries on World War II. It’s a scene of Neville Chamberlain waving a piece of paper before a cheering crowd, saying, “I believe it is peace for our time… Go home and get a nice quiet sleep.”
Then I flip channels to CNN, and there’s President Obama at the Nuclear Summit saying… Because of steps we’ve taken as individual nations and the international community, the American people will be safer and the world more secure.
So, I flip some more and the History Channel is airing a series on World War One. Up drives the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand to some ceremony in Sarajevo, and boom, he gets assassinated. World War I starts. Back to CNN, and there’s the wreckage of a Tupolev Tu-154 carrying a load of Polish leaders. I can’t help but think, we’re on the brink of history repeating itself all over again.
Shrink: But you know that Polish plane crash was an accident, don’t you? That wasn’t an assassination.
Anchorman: Well, yes, I know. That’s what news organizations are reporting, but I’ve also been looking at those comment sections in some of the European papers, and I have to say, many Poles are deeply suspicious. And I guess, it’s with good reason. You know…Putin, and all. They say that Putin, the former KGB agent, has poisoned rivals with radioactivity, assassinated agents gone bad with ricin. And there’s all that stuff about journalists who write unfavorable pieces about him disappearing. I don’t know what to believe. But I do remember the Poles feeling terribly let down when Obama withdrew promises of that missile shield to protect them. It strengthened Putin’s hand, I suppose. And wouldn’t it be like Putin, the shirtless, pectorally pronounced extrovert to stage such a tragedy on the anniversary of the murder of those Polish World War II officers? Kind of an in-your-face move?
Shrink: But isn’t Putin going to attend the funeral of the Polish delegation? Wasn’t it the Russians who did the maintenance on that plane recently? Didn’t Putin himself promise to head up the investigation of the planes black boxes, and all?
Anchorman: Yes. That’s precisely the problem. But that’s only part of it.
Shrink: What? You mean with Putin?
Anchorman: No. I mean with my paranoia. You know, Obama. Did you see how he bowed yet again to the Chinese leader, Hu Jintao? All I could think of was that admission of his communications director Anita Dunn some months ago , when she said that her favorite political philosopher was Mao.
Shrink: But didn’t she also say in the very same sentence, that Mother Theresa was her other favorite political philosopher? And then she added, as I recall, that she was only joking?
Anchorman: Joking? About whom? Mother Theresa or Mao? And speaking of communications? Did you see how the world press is complaining how much they were controlled by the White House at the summit? Very un-American. There’s even some sort of a protest being lodged with the White House Correspondents Association, I’ve heard. And did you see Obama point his finger in the face of the Canadian Prime Minister? I mean , who are our friends and who are our enemies these days? Here is our President—indignant at Israel for building houses—and practically ignoring Iran for building a nuke!
Shrink: Well I saw him chatting nicely with some representative from India at the summit. That was a good sign, don’t you think, what with neighboring Pakistan being such an unraveling terrorist threat?
Anchorman: No. All I could think about was something I read yesterday in DEBKAfile, an Israeli Web site who’s motto is: We start where the media stop. Here’s the story:
Five people suffering serious burns were hospitalized in West New Delhi this week from contact with radioactive material in a Delhi scrap market identified as Cobalt-60 which may be used for making a dirty bomb. Indian police cordoned off the 200 market stores and sealed nearby establishments up to a one-kilometer radius. Scrap dealer Deepak Jain and his helpers lost consciousness when they cut a piece of scrap metal. A white fluid oozed out causing the burns, Jain’s hair fell out and within minutes his skin turned black. His workers suffered and nausea. All five are battling for their lives in hospital, setting off a security scare in the Indian capital, with prime minister Manmohan Singh briefed on the incident before leaving for Washington to attend the nuclear security summit which opened Monday, April 12. Nuclear scientists from the Baba Atomic Research Center and Narora Atomic Power Plant identified the material and are working around the clock to investigate its source.
Shrink: That is troubling….
Anchorman: Yes it is. But that’s not all. Did you see that the new York Times is reporting that, Israeli officials say that Syria has delivered accurate long-distance Scud missiles to the Lebanese group Hezbollah, placing Israeli cities deep in its heartland, including Tel Aviv, within range.
There’s also this bit of news, also from DEBKAfile. It’s reporting that the summit was a bit of a sham:
One reason why the Nuclear Security summiteers avoided the brass-tacks decisions for dealing with the threat of nuclear terrorism was that their working papers were only dated up to 2005 – nothing about the nuclear black market in the interim five years up until now.
And DEBKAfile also had this headline today from Ahmadinejad:
If Tehran is attacked, nuclear devices will go off in American cities.
That’s a first-of-a-kind threat from Iran. And keep in mind that we now positively know that they’ve been behind IED and other kinds of attacks on Americans in Iraq, in Afghanistan, earlier in the 80’s in Lebanon , and elsewhere. I mean , I’m beginning to take this guy Ahmadinejad seriously. And so do the Israeli’s. Did you see that Netanyahu warned Israeli citizens to leave the Sinai? Apparently they have credible threats of terrorists, posing as spies or agent provocateurs trying to kidnap Israelis there.
Shrink: Well, maybe you should take comfort in knowing that those things are happening half a world away?
Anchorman: No, because agent provocateurs are at work here, too! Did you see that a guy named Jason Levin, creator of http://www.crashtheteaparty.org , has recruited 65 people to infiltrate tea parties with racist, homophobic, misspelled signs to paint tea-partiers in the worst possible light? It’s already happening in New Hampshire, according to http://www.nowhampshire.com. And in North Carolina Tea Partiers are being stripped of their right to carry signs by a local government!
Shrink: Ah, sorry, Anchorman, I hate to interrupt, but our time is running out.
Anchorman: And a North Korean submarine apparently sunk a South Korean ship last week. Why would they do that? I’ll tell you why… because the North Koreans are shipping nuke and missile technology to Iran. Thats why!
Shrink: Ah, Anchorman, our time really is up. I think you need to keep in mind that all these things are not so out of the ordinary when you consider that the world is a big place, and there are lots of things going on that may not be connected, even if we think they are. As Freud said, Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Anchorman: (Walking toward the door) That reminds me! How ‘bout that Congressman Anthony Weiner! Calling Sen. Liebermann a “dick.” And then, according to The Hill, he says he follows Twitter for the Tea Party just to fuck with them!
Shrink: (closing the door) Goodbye anchorman…
Anchorman a well-known news anchor from a top-10, big city station. The Daily Caller has elected to redact his identity to protect his anonymity.