if I were the moderator

The Maximum Leader engages in brief speculation about what a fourth Bush-Kerry debate would consist of.

They should've asked me to moderate. I'd think up some questions.

ME: Senator Kerry, is it your opinion that we are nothing more than bodies in vats supplying bioelectrical power to a malevolent machine entity that has convinced us we're living eternally in the year 1999?

KERRY: Let me tell you exactly where I stand on this issue. First--

ME: Thank you, Senator. President Bush, when it comes to wiping your ass after a hearty shit, are you a back-to-fronter or a front-to-backer?

BUSH: Heh. Last I checked I w--

ME: Thank you, Mr. President. Senator Kerry, you have five seconds to respond to Mr. Bush's claim that he is a back-to-fronter, and has been since the day he was conceived.

BUSH: Now, wait just a--

KERRY: Yes, I'd be happy to comment on that claim, Mr. Ho. The Pres--

ME: Thank you, Senator. Mr. President, what's your stance on predestination?

BUSH: Against. Liberal hogwash. What the hell kind of economic policy is that?

ME: Thank you, Mr. President. Senator Kerry, if two roads diverged in a wood and I, I took the road less travelled by, would that indeed make all the difference?

KERRY: Yes. Or maybe no. But if you could split yourself in two--

ME: Mr. President, what parallels do you see between the Texas macho ideal, the Confucian notion of the superior man, and the Taoist notion of the sage?

BUSH: I heard Confucius was constipated.

ME: I think you're confusing him with Martin Luther. Senator Kerry, does your wife withhold sex from you if you perform poorly during the debates?

KERRY: I have a wife?

ME: Thank you, Senator. Mr. President, if you had the power to make a single body part larger, which part would you enlarge, by how much, and why?

BUSH: Hell, that's easy! I'd enlarge my-- waaaiiiiit, this is a trick question, ain't it.

ME: Thank you, Mr. President. Senator Kerry, same question.

KERRY: Could we rephrase the question to read two body parts?

BUSH: Jesus H. Christ, John, you want two dicks?

KERRY: George, I didn't say I--

ME: Gentlemen, please--

BUSH: You've always been jealous of the fact that Laura's got the sweetest ass in Washington, and you're stuck with that pendeja gorda of a wife!

KERRY: Goddammit, why the hell do you two keep saying I'm married?

ME: Gentlemen, if we could come to order--

BUSH: She's nuts, John, and she's running your campaign right into a crater!

KERRY: What sort of fucked-up, lame-ass metaphor is that? "Right into a crater"??

BUSH: She's gerbiling your chances, John! You better get your team to muzzle her before she draws first blood again!

KERRY: Honestly, I--

ME: Sénateur Kerry, je suis désolé de vous interrompre, mais--

KERRY: C'est pas le moment, Big! Le toupet qu'il a, ce connard!

BUSH: Tu madre chupa las pingas de caballo, Kerry!

...at which point the scene degenerates into a fist-swinging, podium-throwing melee, amid Bush's shouts of "Texas will secede!" and Kerry's cries of "I fucking ruled in Vietnam!" and my own bellows of "Metamucil makes my shit hard enough to cut glass!"



UPDATE: Thanks to Conrad, I've discovered that Mike and I weren't the only ones mulling over alternate debate scenarios.

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