Friday, July 23, 2004
July 24, 2004
Vice President Dick Cheney
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Vice President Cheney,
You’ll never guess where I’ve been--Italy!
That’s right--my wife, Viola finally talked me into going. Have you ever been? You should go sometime. Travelling broadens you. Also, I think your wife would like it. She’s probably tired of spending all her vacations in Crawford, Texas, baking brownies with Laura Bush.
I learned mucho in Italy! Mucho means a lot. Here’s another thing I learned:
Vaffanculo!
That means, “Go f*** yourself,” in Italian. You should memorize that: Vaffanculo! Say it with gusto! Put your hands and shoulders into it! Pinch your thumb and index finger together. Ok--try it again: Vaffanculo!
Now you’re ready. Next time you’re on the Senate floor and Patrick Leahy reminds you of all those Halliburton kick-backs or he asks you where are the records of your secret energy meetings or he asks you where are the WMD(s), just say, “Vaffanculo!” The beauty of it is, nobody will ever know what you’re saying, but you’ll feel much better. Best of both worlds! It feels even better to say it in Italian than it does in English! Vaffanculo!
While I was gone, I heard the Flip-Flopping Pessimistic Liberal Frenchman Who is a Friend of bin Laden chose John McCain to be his running mate but got turned down so he had to settle for The Inexperienced Liberal Lawyer John Edwards. It’s a good thing Italians don’t vote--Edwards is like Elvis over there!
Anyway, what will your debating strategy be? I think you need to rough The Inexperienced Liberal Lawyer up a little bit. If Edwards says:
“Mr. Vice President, in light of the fact that Halliburton, of which you are the former CEO and from which you still draw a sizeable pension has: fraudulently overcharged the U.S. government for services that it has performed in Kuwait with a no-bid contract; paid 180 million dollars under the table to a British lawyer to advance the construction of a Nigerian natural gas complex; and hidden illegal trade with Iran by doing business out of the Cayman Islands; Mr. Vice President, how do you answer the critics who say you have distorted and manipulated the facts on Iraq in the most nakedly crass manner so that you and your former company could profiteer from a needless and catastrophic war?”
You say, “Senator Edwards, vaffanculo!
Arrivederci,
Carl Estrada
P.S. Arrivederci is the polite way to say goodbye. When you want to say goodbye to a friend--like your doctor who gave you a clean bill of health afer your fourth heart attack but had to quit because he was a drug addict, that’s when you say arrivederci. When the Inexperienced Liberal Lawyer who was Kerry’s Second Choice makes a joke about you being “a heartbeat from the presidency,” that’s when you say, “Vaffanculo!”
Capiche?