Saturday, March 19, 2005

RealPolitik World: Season 1: Kabul

nation

"This is the true story of seven strangers, picked to live in a house and have their lives taped, and find out what happens when people stop being polite and start getting REAL. The RealPolitik World (TM)!"

Scouting For Rooms

William Kristol (in the confessional): The detention center where we all elected to reside was ... a less than tasteful affair (huffily). And, at the outset, I was kind of apprehensive about living with some real calculating Machiavellian Realists -- me being a Neocon and all -- but, hell, I did graduate studies in the social sciences at Harvard, so, well, how much worse could it be?

Charles Krauthammer: I found the idea of Neocons living with Realists in full view of the cameras to be a novel idea, a theatrical production clearly cognizant of American willpower. How it would all turn out? Who would have predicted ...

Francis Fukuyama: It was like eating pineapples on the Moon. (Cracked laughter)

The members of the household avert their gaze from Fukuyama.

Midge Dector: The gentlemen had decided that I was to get the single room, which was all well and good, being as I was the only "broad" among them. Unfortunately, Henry Kissinger had other designs ...

Krauthammer: It was utterly disgusting. Total war criminal shit. Just ... (overwrought) awful. We opened the door, after several minutes of protracted effort carrying up Midge's luggage. And what did we see at the top of the stair? -- Kissinger had already fucking colonized the room. Every flat surface was covered with redacted documents, Wagnerian maps to Rings-of-Power, and Machiavelli texts. And not just the various Histories and letters! Kissinger was reading Machiavelli's crappy sex farce, like The Mandrake. And no one reads that fuckwittage.

It was some really fucking sick shit going down, man; pardon my French.

As he lay there, spread eagle, on the bed, cloven hooves polished and sparkling in the elderich moonlight, his (Averted Gaze) "sauerkraut" in full-view, dangling sinisterly, like a baby's arm, he uttered, dismissively -- and I'll never forget this so long as I live ...

Henry Kissinger (guttural roar): ... "De early bird catches the worm."

Midge Dector: (Clearly frustrated) It was off-putting to say the least; my first moments on "Realpolitik" world, shrugged, like Atlas. Frankly, I'm not sure what disturbed me about this more: his "diplomatic linkage" -- so to speak -- hanging free, or the fact that he was using a cliche in the form of some grand historical epigram. The tales of Kissinger's legendary wit are vastly distorted, I'm afraid.

Robert F. Ellsworth: Clearly, she wished that it was Rumsfeld in flagrante delicto. It may not have been the way they do things at The Heritage Foundation. But Hans Morgenthau would have been proud of our boy, Henry. Score one: Realists!

Kissinger (throaty): -- De ends justify the means.

William Kristol: That kind of cliche aphorism? Let me tell you -- It gets old real quick, my friend.

In Da Club

Paul Wolfowitz: It's, like, Friday night, in Kabul, and we all wanted to do something as a group.

Fareed Zakaria: (Falsetto) 'Cause I'm young and single and loves to mingle.

William Kristol: Krauthammmer suggested we go cheer on the troops.

Ellsworth: Kissinger had some hard-to-come-by invites to a local Kabul club.Strictly on a need-to-know basis, you understand.

Zakaria: Hmm. You do the math on who won our allegiance that night. Cheering on the troops, or exclusive party.

Midge Dector: Fukuyama forgot his ID.

Kristol: Fukuyama fucked up.

Fukuyama: It was, in retrospect, a regrettable oversight on my part. One that could not be forseen. Sometimes, I get caught up in my eccentric theories (chuckles softly). My teachers always taught me: Francis: come back to earth, Rocketman! End of history and shit, y'know? But I was sure the house had my back, n' shit.

Midge Dector: We were faced with the daunting prospect of turning back and finding some other means of entertainment for the evening, or going in without Fukuyama...

Fukuyama: (Spraying hot tears) ... Motherfuckers left me hanging.

Zakaria: Lots of local flavor. (Arroagntly) My kind of scene. It was, like, all secret spies and contractors and covert on the DL shit. Very cool place. We smoked a hookah with the local chieftains afterwards. (Dreamily) Mahhvelous. This week's column wrote itself within, oh, five minutes in that joint.

Dector: -- And they served a mean Ox-tail barbecue. In Kabul, of all places.

Fukuyama: (Still distraught) It was some cold-blooded, petty shit (wringing hands), leaving me behind like that. Unforgivable.

Kissinger: Alls fair in love and politics.

The Mess in the Sink

Midge Dector: We all shared one bathroom. That's how things go in a war zone. As the only woman, I was under no illusion.

Anyway, I believe that I was the first one to witness the ... mass.

Fukuyama: No one knew what it was.

Kissinger: Finally, I had a contact in forensics, deeply involved in Kabul, strictly on a "need to know" basis, analyze it.

Wolfowitz: He found it to be hair and saliva. (Uncomfortable) We ... never found out who put it there.

Kissinger: That's right. We never found out, Wolfie.

Ellsworth: Score 2, Realists.

Leaving

Dector: I'll miss the place. Did I learn anything? Sure, everything is not good and evil.

Kissinger: No, I did not learn anything, because there is nothing to learn, only survive and survive well. Will I miss the place? It was only an experience.

Zakaria: I think I met the right people. I believe that I'll meet my calculations to become the youngest Secretary of State. That's all that matters, in the end.


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