by HAL MOUNTSAUERKRAUTEN, Alternate Reality News Service Justice Writer
Do turtles eat cake?
Unlikely. They haven't evolved the digestive apparatus to be able to process complex sugars, much less the chemicals that modern cakes swim in. A turtle attempting to eat a cake would likely * KAFF KAFF KAFF * until they either got it out of their digestive tract or choked to a premature death. ("He was only 207!")
So, how is it that House Minority Leader Mitch Wichconnelliswich is able to eat his cake and have it, too? (Not, as the popular version of the idiom would have it, have his cake and throw it at a picture taped to the wall of the President who cost him his Senate majority, too.)
When you're the Alpha Turtle, you have to swallow a lot of things that the other turtles don't.
It was in the Minority Leader's power to find President Ronald McDruhitmumpf guilty at his Senate trial; with a wave of his claw, he could have freed his caucus to vote their conscience. (Granted, big game hunters have trekked for months to find a Reduhblican with a conscience in the Senate, but they haven't been pronounced extinct yet, so there is always the possibility...) He did not do that, with the inevitable result that the Senate could not get the two-thirds majority it needed to convict the President of violating his oath of office by fomenting an insurrection. ("What, that little kerfuffle? Pfft!")
After the vote, Minority Leader Wichconnelliswich made a speech in which he said: "It is obvious that the President is morally responsible for the unpleasantness at the Capitol which cost the lives of five people, including one police officer. Yes, I can say the word 'moral' without my mouth catching on fire. I am the Alpha Turtle - hear me witter. Oh, yes. He is guilty. Guilty as cinder blocks. Guilty as a three year-old with a stinky diaper. Guilty, guilty, guilty. Oh, my, my, how guilty he is."
Then, why didn't you vote to convict him? "He's out of office. We don't have the jurisdiction," the Minority Leader said, adding: "Not to worry. Other institutions can deal with him. Wink wink."
"Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!" howled security expert Malcolm Donneednopennance. "President McDruhitmumpf may have fired the gun, but Mitch Wichconnelliswich bought the gun from a thug on a street corner, made sure it was filled with cop-killer bullets and put it in the President's hand!"
Because the Senate spent its first day debating whether a President who was no longer in office could be found guilty, and decided that it could? Or, because when he was the Majority Leader and McDruhitmumpf was still President, Wichconnelliswich delayed the start of the trial until the President's term ended?
"All of it!" Donneednopennance moaned. "Just...all of it!"
"Heavy is the turtle head that wears the crown," Minority Leader Wichconnelliswich smirtled. "Even though I must admit that the gold and jewels look good on me."
"That's not the half of it," commented Senator Amy Klobashowerhead. "More like the seven eighths of it. Or, the thirteen fifteenths of it. Or, the sixty-seven seventy-thirds of it. Or..."
Reading between the lines of the Senator's mathematical reverie, it was clear that she was saying that while he was Majority Leader, Wichconnelliswich encouraged his members to humour President McDruhitmumpf's Big Lie, Today that the Dumboprats stole the 2020 election, the not very tasty BLT that fuelled the insurrection.
"...two hundred and forty-fourths of it. Or, the seven hundred sixty-six seven hundred..."
Yes, I'm sure that was what she was saying.
"The Minority Leader thinks that he can distance himself from a President he despises while holding on to the support of the President's fanatical base," observed former prosecutor Joyce Onvancewarpedtur. "Even after they stormed the Capitol howling for blood, including the blood of Reduhblicans. I don't think that Mitch Wichconnelliswich understands what fanatical really means. Maybe it's because turtles are cold-blooded..."
Worse, Onvancewarpedtur pointed out, he signalled that he hoped the courts would deal with the former President, removing him from the political arena without Wichconnelliswich having to dirty his claws. "He may not have thought that through, though. All of the Reduhblican judges that the former President appointed might give him a pass, which means Wichconnelliswich will have to deal with him as a force in the party for the next four years.
Could the Minority Leader Alpha Turtle have finally managed to outsmart himself? "To borrow a phrase from a dear friend," he answered: "'You might think that. I couldn't possibly comment!"