Remember when an Iraqi vice president offered to have Saddam and Bush fight a duel to settle things? Well, in the New Yorker, Jesse Lichtenstein offers up a possible scenario wherein the two prospective combatants discuss the impending episode of Gentleman’s Satisfaction.
Here’s an excerpt:
Dear Mr Saddam Hussein,
By your Distempers and want of those Decent Principles by which have all Men liv’d peaceably, by your Baseness and notorious Felonies, your Threats and Vile Expressions, you have much offended one who give no Cause for Offence. Therefore it leave to me no Choice save that I request a Gentleman’s Satisfaction, and do hereby await your Reply.
I am, Sir, your most humble, etc.,
George W. Bush
Dear Bush,
I curse you. May you be trampl’d by Swines. May the Oil you unstintingly Obtain from me be of Inferior Quality. May your Ears grow by Night and your Nose by Day, you leprous Swag.
There. Indeed that was most Refreshing. The exchange of wilde Oaths and Invecktives were always a favourite Pass-time for me, even as a Childe.
I shou’d delight of a Meeting. I have oft heard tell of your Country Estates, which, if I be not in Error, inhere within the Texas country. This I do propose as mete for Conference. Be Texas not a Land of great Chattel and nubile Maidens? Are there not hang’d and Injection’d Criminals of most debas’d Nature? Further, your man Cheney avows that your Grounds be equipp’d with Hot Tub. If this be Truth, I shall assuredly convey with me the apposite batheing Attire.
I am your devoted, servile, etc. etc.,
Saddam
[ Found in the re-launched Arts and Letters Daily. Thanks Mark! ]