Read Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin Online
Authors: Calvin Trillin
Quite Enough of Calvin Trillin (20 page)
The only king we have is Jesus.
It’s Jesus who can keep us pure.
The only king we have is Jesus,
And He’s Republican for sure.
The homosexual lifestyle
Could make our Jesus weep.
He loathed their jokes about which cheek to turn.
Yes, Jesus came to teach us
With whom we’re supposed to sleep.
Ignore that and you’ll go to hell to burn.
(FINAL CHORUS SUNG IN TONGUES)
Tron smleck gha dreednus hoke b’loofnok
Frak fag narst fag madoondah greeb.
Tron smleck gha dreednus hoke b’loofnok
Dar popish, flarge dyur darky, hebe.
2001
Wyoming Congressman, Secretary of Defense,
Vice President of the United States
One mystery I’ve tried to disentangle:
Why Cheney’s head is always at an angle.
He tries to come on straight, and yet I can’t
Help notice that his head is at a slant.
When Cheney’s questioned on the Sunday shows,
The Voice of Reason is his favorite pose.
He drones in monotones. He never smiles—
Explaining why some suspects don’t need trials,
Or why right now it simply stands to reason
That criticizing Bush amounts to treason,
Or which important precept it would spoil
To know who wrote our policy on oil,
Or why as CEO he wouldn’t know
What Halliburton’s books were meant to show.
And as he speaks I’ve kept a careful check
On when his head’s held crooked on his neck.
The code is broken, after years of trying:
He only cocks his head when he is lying.
2002
Chairman of the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee
,
Deputy Field Marshal of the Sissy Hawk Brigade
(
Vietnam War
Evaders Lobbying for an Invasion of Iraq
)
Consider kids who bullied Richard Perle—
Those kids who said Perle threw just like a girl,
Those kids who poked poor Perle to show how soft
A momma’s boy could be, those kids who oft
Times pushed poor Richard down and could be heard
Addressing him as Sissy, Wimp, or Nerd.
Those kids have got a lot to answer for,
’Cause Richard Perle now wants to start a war.
The message his demeanor gets across:
He’ll show those playground bullies who’s the boss.
He still looks soft, but when he writes or talks
There is no tougher dude among the hawks.
And he’s got planes and ships and tanks and guns—
All manned, of course, by other people’s sons.
In an uncharacteristically prankish mood, I wrote that poem without knowing anything about Richard Perle’s childhood. After it appeared, though, I heard from one of Perle’s grade school classmates, who wanted to know how I’d found out that Perle had been bullied. Then another classmate wrote
The Nation,
saying that she didn’t remember Perle as a wimp but as simply “very serious.” After gathering a couple of true details, I answered Perle’s defender in
The Nation:
“You were not one of the fourth-grade girls who used to push Richard down the hill on Fuller Street, and you didn’t laugh once in sixth grade when Rocco Guntermann, from Mrs. Flynn’s class, referred to Richard as ‘Perlie Girl’? Fine. Whatever you say. If the United States invades Iraq without provocation, it won’t be your fault.”
She wrote again. She remembered Fuller Street and Mrs. Flynn, but she claimed there was no Rocco Guntermann. My final answer in the letters column was, “I suppose Rocco Guntermann, the classmate whose existence you deny, did not say to me just last week, ‘We can settle this if Perlie Girl meets me near the swings at five o’clock on Friday, and tell him not to bring two teachers and his mother this time.’ Would it surprise you to learn that Rocco is now a psychotherapist in Sherman Oaks?”
2002
Secretary of State
We need to say farewell to Colin Powell,
Who should have long ago tossed in the towel.
Instead he lent his good name to the team
In vouching for its cockamamie scheme.
And now the team has shoved him out the door—
Not needed anymore (they got their war).
He’s let himself be used by lesser men.
It’s sad to see, as we remember when
Some thought he was the President-Elect to be,
How easily is done a Colinectomy.
2004
Texas Congressman, House Majority Leader
I think I heard a liberal say
To this DA, “Hooray! Hooray!
Because you finally made my day
When you indicted Tom DeLay.
They’ll never fashion, come what may,
An ethics rule that he’d obey.
Corruption’s in his DNA.
It dominates his résumé.
He works the shadowed shades of gray.
The moment that his side held sway,
He made the lobbyists on K
Just hire those who thought his way,
Then pay and pay and pay and pay.
For access, he did pay-to-play.
The Congress of the USA
Became the cages of Bombay.
So here’s what I’d like for the Hammer:
A whole bunch of years in the slammer.”
2004
National Security Advisor
Sung to the Tune of “March of the Siamese Children” from
The King and I,
and Accompanied by the Secretary Herself on the Baby Grand
Condoleezza Rice, who is cold as ice, is precise with her advice.
Yes, she is quite precise, and, yes, she’s cold as ice.
In her can be found talents that abound. She’s renowned, though tightly wound. Yes, talents can be found, and, yes, she’s tightly wound.
She once avowed we might see a large mushroom cloud if more reign by Hussein were allowed,
Which turned out to be: total bushwa, yes, total bushwa.
When she accused him of buying tubes only used to make nukes the truth was abused.
And she knew she spoke total bushwa, yes, total bushwa.
So to serve her guy, she will testify to a lie she hopes you’ll buy—to try to petrify, precisely tell a lie.
Condoleezza Rice, who is cold as ice, is precise with her advice.
Yes, she is quite precise, and, yes, she’s cold as ice.
2005
Virginia Senator, Presumed Contender for the
Republican Presidential Nomination
Republican insiders once agreed,
When contemplating who’d most likely lead
Their presidential ticket in ’08,
George Allen was the perfect candidate.
He fit what’s often valued by the Right:
Quite cheerful, Reaganesque, and not too bright.
His ’06 Senate race was called a breeze,
But then one comment brought him to his knees.
He said “macaca” in a way that fully
Revealed him simply as a racist bully.
The deed was done that fast; within a beat
This man was set to lose his Senate seat.
One message should have then been learned by all:
That YouTube’s always lurking in the hall.
2006
Secretary of Defense
To be so wrong so often is a curse,
But being arrogantly wrong is worse.
Still, briefings were a hoot. Our favorite feature?
That tone—exactly like a third-grade teacher
Explaining math to those forevermore
Too slow to get promoted to grade four.
So may you find, as down life’s road you’re wending,
More folks to whom you’re always condescending.
2006
Louisiana Senator
All Washington, D.C., is now atwitter
With talk about some deeds of David Vitter.
With sanctimony, he had always been
Prepared to cast folks out for any sin.
For him, the sanctity of marriage loomed
Above all issues. Gays, of course, were doomed.
And when Bill Clinton misbehaved, Dave’s voice
Said resignation was the only choice.
So critics smiled, and backers were appalled,
To learn Dave paid to get his ashes hauled.
Once more, for right-wing folks it really rankles
To see who’s caught with pants around his ankles.
Who’s next? Who knows? But some would take the view
That sanctimony’s often quite a clue.
2007
Arkansas Governor, Contender for the
Republican Presidential Nomination
The nice vote goes to Huckabee.
No other is as nice as he.
He leads a decent sort of life.
He’s married to his only wife.
His kids, we’d bet, still speak to him.
He’s courteous, but isn’t prim.
A cheerful fat man who got lean,
He’s not vindictive, rude, or mean.
Of course, he thinks our way’s been lost:
Abortion is a “holocaust”
And evolution’s just a myth
(The apes are not his kin or kith)
And what the Bible says is true.
The Earth’s not old. It’s rather new—
Six thousand years, from Eve to present.
He’s wacko, sure, but he’s sure pleasant.
2007
New York Mayor, Contender for the
Republican Presidential Nomination
“So tell me the most charming feature then
Of he who saved the city from collapse.”
“It might take me a while to think of that.
Offhand, I’d say vindictiveness, perhaps.”
2008
Ohio Congressman, Contender for the
Democratic Presidential Nomination
Revealed, while running hard with perseverance,
A smallish, left-wing man whose frail appearance
Suggested he’d not finished all his spinach.
Voilá: the vegan congressman, Kucinich.
2008
North Carolina Senator, Contender for the
Democratic Presidential Nomination
A Country Song About John Edwards
He grew up poor in Carolina, sure.
He’s not a fake. He comes from folks like us.
I like the sound of what John Edwards says,
But why’s his hair the kind that plain won’t muss?
Yes, I know he’s a mill worker’s son, but there’s Hollywood in that hair.
He whacks the corporations where it hurts.
His plan is best for caring for the sick.
His wife’s a gem. We’re nutty for the kids.
But Lordy that man’s pompadour’s too slick.
Yes, I know he’s a mill worker’s son, but there’s Hollywood in that hair.
Sure I know he’s got substance and grit, and judging by hair is not fair.
Yes, I know he’s a genuine guy, and there’s plain people’s values we share.
Yes, I know he’s a mill worker’s son, but there’s Hollywood in that hair.
2008
Mayor of New York, Moneybags
This Michael Bloomberg is a small, rich smartie
Who isn’t comfortable in either party.
From Democrat, in New York’s fateful fall,
He switched so he could run for City Hall.
Six years from then, he left the GOP,
Reviving talk among the pols that he
Might try an independent White House go—
Self-financed, in the style of Ross Perot.
Comparing them, Mike’s Carville, Kevin Sheekey,
Saw Mike as just as rich and much less squeaky.
A moderate who’s rarely overwrought,
Mike seemed nonpartisan, and it was thought
If parties chose extremes, then he could enter
And run successfully right down the center.
His drawbacks? Well, his speeches, some would gripe,
Can mimic Ambien, the CR type.
Perot makes Bloomberg somewhat déjà vu-ish.
And, to be frank, they pointed out, Mike’s Jewish.
2008
Tennessee Senator, Contender for
Republican Presidential Nomination
I
One candidate the Right still hoped to see
Was big Fred Thompson, since they knew that he
Would always, as he’d done on
Law and Order
,
Protect the unborn and our southern border.
II
Fred Thompson, heir to Reagan, had so far
Just failed to demonstrate he was a star.
He’d started late, and hadn’t closed the gap—
Most Reaganesque in that he liked his nap.
III
For Thompson, Carolina was the test
On whither went his presidential quest.
The pros said, “That’s a state he has to take,
And he just might, if he can stay awake.”
IV
In Carolina, Thompson’s finish meant
That it was time for Fred to fold his tent.
Yes, Fred got out, but evidence was thin
That he was there when he said he was in.
