The West Wing: President Valverde.

(With Apologies to Aaron Sorkin.)

Scene I: President Quantavius Valverde is in the Oval Office with his Chief of Staff, Ira Rath, having his morning briefing.

PRESIDENT VALVERDE: What kind of messed up stuff has landed on my desk this morning?

IRA RATH: Well, Lobs Doo from Cable Network News is questioning your citizenship.

PV: When did Jersey City leave the union? What are we doing about him?

IR: Knowing Mr. Doo's history with angioplasty and diabetes, we sent him a lovely cheesecake and signed it Rusty Gobler.

PV: (Smiles) There is nothing like the loving fraternity of conservative pundits.

IR: More seriously, Huang Seuk Gu of Upper Hangulia is willing to talk about releasing the female journalists.

PV: The pudgy little paranoid must be out of food again. What does he want?

IR: Legitimacy. Height. An ego stroke, a bigger peenie, he's a needy little freak.

PV: Duly noted, but he's a needy little freak who has a couple of our citizens in prison.

IR: We could send Norton Charles.

PV: The karate guy with the bad toupee from Rider:GBI?

IR: Filming wrapped in Atlanta last week.

PV: It would be appealing if not for the inevitable international incident.

IR: Inevitable?

PV: General Secretary Huang is obsessed with American entertainment and martial arts. Huang and Norton Charles would either hit it off owing to a mutual love of isolationism or they decide to have a physical confrontation and Huang has him shot.

IR: The propaganda value would be high...

PV: But not for us. Next? No more B-movie actors from films about rescuing Americans from Communists. Oh wait...that was humor. Now I get it.

IR: Yessir. Huang has met with former President Earl Miller.

PV: I appreciate Earl's support. I really do. But he's also 85 years old, may be suffering from undiagnosed dementia, and he hasn't crossed paths with a dictator he couldn't love in the last 15 years.

IR: Huang's father.

PV: He does us more good being quiet on his legume farm in Vermont.

IR: What about Vice President Gilbert Blood?

PV: What's he going to do, bore Huang to death? He was the number two man in he most successful administration of the last forty years, and still managed to lose to a borderline retard from Stillwater, Oklahoma.

IR: Well, there was the whole House of Representatives thing...

PV: Humor, I am not always good with. Constitutional law is my specialty. If it had been the Supreme Court, then I would be annoyed. And ever since Blood got that Academy Award, he has been absolutely insufferable.

IR: What about Secretary of State Burlington?

PV: 18 Months ago, Jennifer Burlington would have been my first choice for a mission to Upper Hangulia, preferably on a one-way ticket. Since joining my administration, she has been an effective Secretary of State. If things went badly, I would lose my best diplomat and then have to justify why she was talking to a country we don't officially talk to.

IR: You know, Bob Burlington is available.

PV: (Raises eyebrows, face becomes relieved, then happy.) If I am an American who had just spent the last few months incarcerated in Upper Hangulia, he would be among the first people on my list of who I would be happy to see. I would not question my safety.

IR: They are still females, sir...

PV: He'd no sooner boink them than he would boink his daughter. I would, however, worry about General Secretary Huang's female relatives.

IR: There is one more reason I would be glad to see him.

PV: What's that?

IR: President Burlington never crossed paths with a cheeseburger that he couldn't love. Have you ever seen Hangulian food?

PV: Point taken. I lived down the street from a Hangulian take-out place when I went to Morehouse. What's next on the agenda?

IR: Hose appropriations has its last meeting before the August recess at ten.

PV: Ira, what time does your happy pill wear off?

IR: At about 10:15, Mr. President.

PV: (Smiling) Be there.