Subject to Change, version 2.0

There’s secrets behind every façade, you know. At Walt Disney World, tales are told of the people inside the Goofy, Mickey, and Stitch costumes, the cast members who devote their evenings to the kinds of drug-and-alcohol driven orgies that would make Bacchus proud. It’s the only way to stay sane , to balance the mad happiness with which they must prance around, day in, day out, for love of Walt and the children. So cross-dressing chick who plays Mickey might use a strap-on to pleasure Pocahantas as Pluto and Cinderella ball madly in the corner and Donald, still sans pants, masturbates while Dopey, Doc, Woody, and Buzz run a train on Belle. Bashful, of course, shoves his proud cock in her mouth as the Beast, crazed on acid and tequila, bellows and cackles at the sight of Goofy trying to suck his own dick.

We also know that what we see at Disney World is but a small, small glimmer of the truth of the place. Below Fantasyland and Tomorrowland are tunnels, vast mazes of tunnels, where the workers move between rides and spaces in the parks so they can magically appear. Once you fall from grace, like losing belief in Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and Uncle Sam, and you see the calculated, sweaty machine beneath Main Street, U.S.A., you can never be innocent again.

Not to belabor the point, but the Bush administration is the Disney World front of geopolitics. What were the appearances of Donald Rumsfeld on various and sundry Sunday morning gabfests but attempts to continue the illusions about Iraq. And what was the joint mini-press conference between President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Jafaari but the mad charade of equivalence. Of course Cinderella really lives in the castle. Of course Jafaari is a sovereign leader.

Little actually needs to be said about the events themselves. (And the transcripts of the Meet the Press and Fox “News” Sunday interviews are tediously, frighteningly the same.) For little was spoken that was actually news. Yeah, yeah, Rumsfeld said the insurgency could go on for a dozen years. And he would not admit a single mistake or misstep or miscalculation or misstatement or missed opportunity or a motherfuckin’ thing about troop strength, “last throes,” pre-war plans, or Karl Rove’s belches of hate, other than that he didn’t know, he’s not “political,” and history will judge him. Rumsfeld sounded like nothing so much as a man who knows that history is going to drag him into a sodomy pit and fuck him ruthlessly, repeatedly, as one should be if one is dragged into a sodomy pit.

And as for that sham press conference where you couldn’t figure out where one lie ended and another one started? Well, no muss, no fuss, no dismembered corpses in Fantasyland. All teacups and submarines, and, for certain, it’s a small world after all.

Non-Iraq Observation : It’s fascinating that when Bush talked about members of Congress regarding Social Security “reform,” he said, “They're afraid if you take on a tough issue, it will make it harder to get reelected,” since, you know, Social Security “reform” was barely mentioned by Bush until after he was re-elected. Ah, the delusional realms to which this presidency will not fail to sink to.