Opening Up Obama's New Whip

The president-elect's new limousine is all that and a pack of Pall Malls. Suburban middle managers who armor-up their SUVs with ramming bars and taillight cages, hoping against hope that the add-ons don't give away their secret careers in counter-terrorism or, worse, their own self delusions, have nothing on the Big O's new ride.

President-elect Obama's new Caddy returns him to his pre-election campaign emotional center, when he rolled in a Hemi-powered Chrysler 300. That's the kind of whip modern-day captains of industry would be rocking if the whole 90k German Sedan Thing had never happened. Big, bold, powerful, in-your-face -- which is what O is all about, never mind the big disarming grin, deep capacity for self examination, and Harpo Marx bowling game.

Think of the Ford Escape Hybrid O traded for in time for Campaign 08 as the necessary automotive statement equivalent of pretending it was worth making Joe the No-way-am-I-ever-going-to-make-enough-take-home-pay-to-fall-into-your-tax-increase-bracket-until-you-make-me-famous Plumber the focus of a presidential debate.

The Mother Earth-loving Escape Hybrid that so briefly served as the Obama family truckster is headed for the Smithsonian, where it will reside next to FDR's skis.

O's new Big Black Caddy-in-Chief has armor plating, shred-proof Kevlar tires, an explosion-resistant fuel tank, self-contained oxygen and fire-suppression, more media options than a PlayStation 3, bulletproof glass, shotguns, and refrigerated bottles of the president's own blood should all defenses fail. It's one bad mutha.

But our new presidential limo needs one last defense ... a defense that by its defenselessness says, "Hey: the defense here is so tight that defense isn't even necessary."

It needs a convertible top.

I know it turned out badly for the last roofless POTUS. I wish no harm to our new president. I respect the hell out of him, and besides, he appointed me the nation's Car Czar without his knowledge during his quick-and-nimble, no B.S. presidential power transition.

Something's not right when the leader of any civilized nation needs to travel in a battle tank, and while the U. S. of A. is one of the least likely nations to off one of its leaders, it's still a deadly dangerous place for a president to be caught out in the open. So with an eye toward this convertible limo proposition, let's take a good look at what such dastardly deeds have gotten this nation to-date.

I'll use Lincoln and Kennedy as examples since their lives and fates were so amazingly intertwined, according to a Sunday newsmagazine ad for Lincoln-Kennedy-head pennies I read as a kid.

Case One: Some Confederate hick shoots Lincoln and what do his regional heirs get out of it? At best, the opportunity to do Yoga beneath a portrait of Mr. Fuchuyama each morning before their assembly line shifts.

Case Two: The mob whacks Kennedy (I'm not basing this on the Oliver Stone movie -- I looked it up for myself on the internet). Today La Cosa Nostra is pretty much stuck buying up pizza shops in the Midwest.

Anybody see a pattern?

This is not a country that celebrates thuggery except in literature, music, movies, and on television.

As the nation's anytime, anywhere, anything Car Czar I will be working with community groups across this great nation to get the word out to the folks among us who still haven't gotten the word that we're a democratic nation of laws, giving special attention to the hey-bobs who still confuse "democratic nation" with "Democratic Party."

A democratic nation of laws does not overthrow governments by violence: we've got the means to blunt and remove if necessary any leader-gone-rogue. If P-elect O screws up, by, say, being the first U.S. president to publicly admit that the Israelis and Palestinians just plain deserve each other, or perhaps, by picking the wrong dog, we can remove him. The left-two guys on the big rock in South Dakota and their buddies made it so.

Therefore I hereby decree that any American citizen who would pose a threat to our president's use of an open-top car in a presidential motorcade is UnAmerican^TM ... a sad gimmick that worked wonders at herding social behavior during the last Administration, so I'm sticking with it ... and no higher form of life than any other rock-throwing, self-detonating malcontent in the world.

This is a very special new leader we have.

Let's spare us all a recap of the obstacles he's overcome. In addition to continuing to make his foaming-mouthed detractors look like foaming-mouthed detractors, he hired Hillary Clinton (not that I like the chick, but well played, anyway) and he's doing what all little boys who used to put ants in a jar to make them fight should do when they grow up to be President of the United States: Have both an anti-gay minister and a pro-gay minister speak at their Inaugurations.

The Birkenstocked retentives and Suburban-driving Real Americans^TM of this fair country still don't know what hit them.

On top of all this, O has a tough, beautiful wife who isn't afraid to let the world know when her husband is BS-ing during those warm, fuzzy family television interviews, a glorious break from the glassy-stared bobbleheaded Yes-Lady who's grimaced her way through the past eight years.

And what smart, darling, daughters.

As the nation's omnipotent Car Czar I will see to it that some nice, sunny day the Os will have the option of letting their Secret Service-trained chauffeur press a button, activating a 1,500-pound folding armored top to let the sunshine in and show-off our fine new First Family proudly to the world.

And let freedom ring.*

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*Under a large Plexiglas bubble. Also, no sense not having a few Chevy Suburban gunships on the outside. There still may be foreigners, who could care less whether they're declared UnAmericans^TM, hanging around, after all.

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P.S. RIP, Mr. Corinthian Leather. Your silky Latin seat-covering assurances gave the 1970s its only hope and promise.

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I'm not done yet. Next week: I disrupt Circuit City's Memorial Service