Atlas Shrugged: The Mocking

Sunday, February 14, 2010

The League of Extraordinary Bloggers: Goin' Galt At Last

In a Secret Location, a Meeting of Diabolical Minds takes place. It is the League of Extraordinary Bloggers, each a hero (or a heroine or a Coulter) in his (or hers, or Coulter's) own sphere. They are:

Col. Glenn Reynolds—famous defender of guns, wherever they are needed to fight the Brown Menace.

Michelle Malkin—a creature of the night, with an insatiable thirst for blood under her modest, cheerleader-clad façade.

Jonah Goldberg—A barefoot man-boy with cheek, famous for being so lazy he got his research assistant to paint his fence.

Megan McArdle--a woman of mystery, of disguise, of charm, which hides an unscrupulous and greedy heart.

Ann Althouse—A respectable professor who digs deep into the evil aspects of her psyche when she drink an experimental potion know as “Merlot.”

Part I: The Adventure Begins
Part II: A Fresh Face
Part III: And The Band Played On
Part IV: Strange Bedfellows
Part V: The NRO Cruise: Voyage To Nowhere

Part VI: Goin' Galt At Last

Reynolds: Is everyone here? Good God, what a storm. If it weren't for my steampunk snowplow I'd still be stuck in Virginia. How did you get here, Malkin?

Malkin: I flew. It was easy once my eyes started glowing red.

McArdle: We should have been able to just drive here instead of getting a police escort. I blame the government for not taking better care of me when I needed them and when everyone else got to go to the Mediterranean on Spring Break and I had to go visit Aunt Bessie and her pet cow Daisy on the farm. Or was it the cow who was named Aunt Bessie? We pay our hard-earned money on taxes for services and where are the services?

Goldberg: We shouldn't be paying any taxes at all!

All: Yeah!

Althouse: And we shouldn't get any services either! We should all clear our own roads!

McArdle: Not so fast, Ann. I have no problem with privilege. Why should I clean my own house or cook my own meals or research my own columns when I can pay someone else to do it for me or not do it at all? It's a much more efficient allocation of resources. Plus work is hard.

Goldberg: Very well said, Megan. I tell my wife that all the time but she never listens to me just because she has more degrees than me.

Malkin: You upper class twits are helpless.

Goldberg: Not everyone has a stay-at-home husband to cook and clean for them.

Malkin: Your wife seems to-she's the lawyer; you blog in your "home office." Also known as "the den."

Goldberg: I work out of the home and office, I'm not a housewife! I'm writing a book and that proves it! I got a million dollars for my second book!

McArdle: What?

Goldberg: I got a million dollars to write a book about how cliches are stupid.

Malkin: Let me guess--your next book will be about how men who speak Klingon are just little boys who never grew up.

Goldberg: I'm an intellectual now, Malkin, so you better be nicer to me or I'll tell O'Reilly to stop putting you on tv. Oh wait, he already did.

Malkin's fangs pop out.

Althouse: Look out Jonah, she's starting to drool, just like when she almost ate Fluffy.

Goldberg giggles.

McArdle: God, you are so jejean, Jonah.

Reynolds: It's jejune.

McArdle: How the hell do you know, Glenn?

Althouse: Helen says it to him all the time. Then she makes him call her Mother Superior.

Reynolds: Gorram it, Ann, the first rule of Dr. Helen's Pleasure House of Pain is to never talk about Dr. Helen's Pleasure House of Pain. That's it--no more Merlot for you.

Althouse: (tosses her head) Fine, I have my own anyway.

Althouse pulls out a flask and takes a dainty swig.

McArdle: Shut up, Ann, and let Jonah talk. How did you get this book contract anyway, Jonah?

Malkin: His mother is a literary agent.

Goldberg: That had nothing to do with it. My reputation preceded me--

Malkin: (interrupts) Much like your stomach.

Goldberg--and everyone begged me to share my insights with my fellow intellectuals. They're making documentaries about me already.

McArdle: Eww, Peter made me watch that with him. It was stupid. Why couldn't we have watched Hoarders instead? I saw this tv show once where a woman filled a warehouse with her possessions. There were shoes and purses and kitchen appliances and electronic equipment and clothes and oh my God, they were everywhere I looked, heaps and piles and mountains of things that prove the superiority of the American Way of Life and our glorious consumer culture and yummy free markets and--and--.

Malkin slaps her.

McArdle sways and ignores the slap.

McArdle: Is it hot in here or is it just me?

Goldberg: Slap her again, Malkin, that was fun.

Malkin slaps Goldberg.

Goldberg: Why, you--I oughta--.

Malkin pokes him in the eye.

Goldberg: Stop it Malkin! That's not funny!

Malkin: I think it's hilarious. What are you going to do, Goldberg, tell your mommy on me?

Goldberg: Leave my wife out of this.

The women snicker.

Reynolds: Enough, enough, we're not here to beat up Jonah, unfortunately. We have a mission to accomplish.

Malkin: Speak for yourself, Reynolds.

Reynolds: WE ARE HERE to coordinate our response to the Snowpocalypse of the Century. My orders are to--

McArdle: By the way, Glenn, who is giving us orders now that Karl has retired to spend more time with his collection of bastinadas?

Reynolds: That's a secret.

McArdle: Come on, tell us. I won't tell anyone else. I deserve to know if I'm going to lead our nation to a new era of fiscal freedom and consumer-based individualism.

Althouse: I don't understand, Megan.

Malkin: Don't worry, neither does she.

McArdle: I went to the top, most expensive schools in the country, Michelle. Where did you go, a state school?

Malkin: I went to Oberlin, you idiot.

McArdle: Where did you go to school, Glenn?

Reynolds: SHUT UP!

Malkin whispers to McArdle. McArdle giggles.

McArdle: How sweet.

Reynolds reaches for his blaster but Malkin grabs his hand.

Malkin: The mission?

Reynolds: Right. Jonah, your mission is to---okay, what the hell happened to Jonah? He was here a minute ago.

K-lo: Look no further than I, Glennie--I mean Col. Reynolds!

Everyone turns around and sees K-Lo, dressed in a pith helmet, khaki skirt and jacket, and Pink Power Rangers quilted coat, holding a knife to Jonah's throat.

Jonah (croaks) K-Lo, let me go or I'll tell everyone what you begged me to do at the office party.

Malkin: Nobody move! He still owes me fifty bucks!

Reynolds: Calm down, K-Lo. Let H. R. Puffnstuff go.

Goldberg: Oh yeah? At least I'm not Jimmie, the magic flute!

Reynolds: Go ahead and cut his throat, K-Lo.

Althouse: Glenn! How will that look in The New York Times?

K-Lo: You guys, it's my turn to talk now. I hereby demand in the name of Pirate Law that you take this ship to Haiti so we can save the poor Haitites from their heathen gods, who are destroying the island in their wrath.

Malkin: K-Lo, you dolt, we are thirty feet under the ladies' washroom in the Lincoln Monument in Washington D.C. How did you even get here?

K-Lo: I'll have you know I got here entirely on my own, after Nanny dropped me off at the entrance and that nice young soldier walked me to the other entrance. Jonah was just coming out so I grabbed him and now you have to listen to me or I'll torture him, just like in my favorite tv show, "24," starring Kiefer Sutherland. I know how to torture because I practiced on Fluffy.

Althouse: You tortured your adorable little dog? That is so mean! And illegal, I think.

K-Lo: It's okay, Ann, I was just pretending. Fluffy was just yelping because I pinched his leg a little to make it more realistic. Mama took away my teeny little home-made electric brain frying machine.

Goldberg: (weakly) What the hell?

K-Lo: I made it with a lamp, magnets, some wire, and the little clips we use to keep the pretzel bags closed.

Malkin: I'm impressed.

McArdle: I'm not going to Haiti for my honeymoon, K-Lo. Forget it. Go ahead and kill Jonah.

Goldberg: Hey! What about my million dollar advance?

McArdle: It's not mine, is it?

Reynolds: K-Lo, I'm afraid to ask but why do you want to go to Haiti?

K-Lo: We have to rescue the heathen children from eternal damnation. Right now the Haiti-tian government is denying us our religious freedom to kidnap other people's' children when their country is hit by a natural disaster. If God didn't want them to convert, He wouldn't have destroyed their country, would he?

Goldberg: That's not a bad idea.

K-Lo: Oh, Jonah! Do you really think so or are you just saying that?

Goldberg: It would be a perfect time to create a libertarian utopia. No rules, nobody telling you what to do or what to wear, or to sit up straight and do your homework. God, I hate my wife. I mean my life.

K-Lo: Great!

K-Lo releases Jonah, who slowly backs away from her and stands behind Reynolds.

K-Lo: Now all we need is a boat and Nanny and we'll be all set to rescue orphans and establish free market capitalism! Megan, do you want to be in charge of all the money?

McArdle: Why, K-Lo, how magnanimous of you. I was just saying to Jonah that I wanted to be better friends--wait a second.

Reynolds: K-Lo, I just sent a message on my Blackberry to my Secret Boss, who promises to have a ship waiting for you by the time you get to the harbor. Now be a good girl and take charge of your new Pirate Vessel, while we all go home and hug our kids and kiss our wives good-bye.

K-Lo: Sure thing, Glenn. I know how hard it is to leave loved ones behind. I left Mama and Daddy behind in New York when I moved to DC. See you soon, everyone!

K-Lo leaves.

Althouse: I don't want to go to Haiti. I like to take pictures of reflections in mirrors and windows and all the glass in Haiti is broken. If you can't look into a mirror and see yourself, how do you know you're really there? Maybe you're the reflection and the real person is in the mirror. Maybe the person in the mirror is much happier than you are and has sex with famous politicians and gets her picture taken by other people instead of just taking pictures of herself taking pictures of herself taking---.

Reynolds: (interrupts) Go home, Ann. We don't need you for this mission anyway.

Althouse weaves her way to the exit.

McArdle: I don't want to go to Haiti either.

Reynolds: WE ARE NOT GOING TO HAITI!

Goldberg: Jesus, Glenn, you don't have to yell.

Reynolds: Goldberg, you complain that the city didn't fix your lights fast enough. McArdle, you figure out how much money the government wasted by paying people overtime to fix the lights they should have fixed themselves.

McArdle: Figure?

Reynolds: You, know, do the math.

McArdle: Math?

Reynolds: (hopefully) You remember, don't you, Megan? Two times three? The square root of the hypotenuse is something or other?

McArdle: It wasn't fashionable at my school to learn how to do math, Glenn. Everyone knows that.

Malkin: That explains a lot.

Reynolds: Just make something up.

McArdle: Say no more, old chap. I can take it from there.

Reynolds: Malkin, you continue pushing those tea parties. I know by the time you're done with them, they'll be primed to hang the first non-white person they see.

Malkin: Consider it done.

Malkin changes into a bat and flies towards the exit.

Reynolds takes out his cell phone and punches in a number.

Reynolds: They're gone. Send in The Boss.

A glow of unearthly light slowly fills the corridor. A woman's form approaches, radiating in the growing light. She sways slightly as her four-inch high heels slide on the slick floor. The apparition finally steps forward into the room. It is----Sarah Palin!

Reynolds: Sarah!

Reynolds kneels before her. Palin smiles beneficently on Reynolds.

Palin: You betcha!

THE END

4 comments:

M. Bouffant said...

Whoooo!!

Audible sounds of amusement.

Susan of Texas said...

Firefly, Angel, K-Lo Chronicles and wingnut blogger jokes, all in one convenient package!

satch said...

This is priceless...when is the movie coming out? I'm not sure how you did it, but you've managed to make Malkin the most sympathetic character in this story. Unfortunately, even though they richly deserve it, I don't think she's nearly as contemptuous of her own side as you make her appear.

Susan of Texas said...

Yeah, I had to take a little creative license. I think of it as political fan fiction.