Anti George Bush political humor and political satire by Paul Chasman

Friday, October 24, 2003
Donald H. Rumsfeld
Secretary of Defense
1000 Defense Pentagon
Washington, DC 20301-1000

Dear Secretary Rumsfeld,

The press just won’t leave you alone! Who leaked that memo?! Do you think it was Condi Rice? Ever since Chevron took her name off that oil tanker, I think she’s been acting a little erratic.

I’m sure you know which memo I mean--the one where you said it’s going to be a “long, hard slog” in Iraq. You told reporters that you looked up “slog” in the dictionary, and it said, “to hit or strike hard...to assail violently.” Maybe in your memo, you should have said, “Victory in Iraq is going to be a long, hard, violent assault.” That would have cleared up the confusion. But I guess that’s 20-20 hindsight.

It’s funny--I looked up “slog” in my dictionary and it said something different. It said, “1. to make (one’s way) with great effort; plod 2. to toil.” I guess you could have said, “Victory in Iraq is going to be a long, hard plod. We will have to toil with great effort,” but somehow, I think the liberal media still would’ve jumped all over you.

Have you tried a Thesaurus? They come in handy sometimes. Here are some words my Thesaurus suggested using instead of “slog:” “Plod, footslog, plodge, plunther, slop, stodge, toil, trash, trudge, drudge, grind, grub, muck, slave, toil.” Maybe you could have said, “Victory in Iraq is going to be a long, hard plunther.” Nobody would know what that meant anyway.

I don’t know why everybody keeps saying we’re in a “quagmire.” My dictionary defines it as a “wet, boggy ground." People who call it a "quagmire" have obviously never been to Iraq, which is a hot, dry desert. My Thesaurus says a quagmire is a “predicament, box, corner, dilemma, fix, hole, jam, pickle, plight, scrape.” Do you think we’re in one of those?

Look it up!
Carl Estrada

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