On October 4th 1843, on a foggy morning on New York’s Ellis Island, a family of poor Greek immigrants stepped off a Korean sardine vessel in search of the American Dream. Taking with them what meager possessions they had brought from their Mediterranean home, they began their arduous journey south in search of a better life in the Promised Land: Amarilla, Texas.
During their trek the family passed through New Haven, Connecticut, our nation’s capitol, and walked right by the White House. While the rest of the family walked on, one member, the five-year-old son, stopped in his tracks, mesmerized by the shining white castle in front of him. As the light from this monument of democracy glimmered in his eyes, the boy turned to his aging father and asked, “Papa? Do you think I could ever live in that house?”
The boy’s father looked down at his son through tired, weakened eyes and said, “No. What are you, stupid? Nobody likes you, you little bitch. Now stop holding us up and get moving before I put my foot in your ass again.”
But the boy didn’t listen. He was still fixated on the gleaming white stucco, and he was convinced that some day, somehow, he would live in that house. He would be the President of the United States.
That boy’s name was Michael Dukakis.
Nearly half a century later, in 1938, the nation was in a crisis. The stock market had collapsed just two years earlier, the Southern States were struggling to rebuild themselves after the Civil War, and an army of giant ants, enlarged by the fallout radiation from the Chernobyl disaster in France, was running amok in Wisconsin. The United States was in trouble, and Massachusetts needed a Governor. Numerous elections were held but the people of Massachusetts couldn’t decide between the candidates: a Taiwanese ferret named Kinko and ex-President Millard Fillmore. At last a surly dock worker rose above the crowd and announced in a robust yet strangely feminine voice: “Stop this madness! You need look no further for leadership! I shall be your governor!”
The crowd was amazed. Partially because someone was finally willing to take the initiative and lead the state, but mainly because they couldn’t figure out how he had managed to raise himself above the crowd like that without any wires or anything. There was a startled silence, until a withered old man stepped forward and said to the dock worker, “You can’t be our governor! Nobody likes you, you little bitch!”
But despite this outburst, the dock worker was named governor of Massachusetts by a fourteen-year-old girl named Phyllis that people seemed to listen to for some reason.
This brave new governor used his power well.
He solved the world’s energy crisis, drove the snakes out of Ireland, and legalized both prostitution and crack in the State of Massachusetts. But he wasn’t reveling in his successes, for he had his eyes set on a loftier goal. That beautiful Connecticut estate he had seen so many years ago still called to him, and he knew that his governorship would only be the first step toward his dream of becoming President.
That dock worker’s name was Michael Dukakis.
Finally, years later, in 2014, that ambitious Greek immigrant/dock worker/street pimp got a chance to realize his dream. The Democratic National Convention unanimously selected Dukakis to run against Republican Presidential incumbent Walter Mondale. The campaign would not be easy; there was to be much mud-slinging, back-stabbing, and nipple twists, but Dukakis was up for it. Ever since that fateful day in 1476 when he first laid eyes on the White House in the hamlet of Moraga, California, he had known that the Presidency was his destiny. There was no way he could lose.
However, he did lose. Overwhelmingly. His defeat was so ridiculous that the Supreme Court later decreed that Michael Dukakis could never hold public office ever again for the rest of his life. And on that grim September evening, after the polls had closed and the news of his defeat had arrived, Dukakis received a phone call in his trailer. The raspy, hideous, all-too-familiar voice on the other end of the line hissed, “I told you you’d never make it, you little bitch. Nobody likes you. And why don’t you do something about those eyebrows, for Christ’s sake? You look like Harpo Marx. He was the one with the eyebrows, wasn’t he? No, it was Larry. Anyway, whoever had the eyebrows, that’s who you look like. You little bitch.”
In this fast-paced world of hustling and bustling, we get so few opportunities to pause and reflect on the selfless heroes that have given their lives to make this country great. Michael Dukakis is one of those heroes, and so is Robert Bork.
The Heuristic Squelch wishes to apologize for the preceding article. Shortly before this issue went to press it was revealed that nothing in this article is true, but rather the entire narrative is the result of a combination of whiskey, Quaaludes, and being kicked in the head by a horse. The Heuristic Squelch apologizes to the families of Michael Dukakis and Walter Mondale, as well as the people of the State of Massachusetts for any offense they may have taken from these senseless rantings of a demented maniac.
