If Kerry had become president...

Few things are as fun as revisionist history. Let's take a moment and go back to the 2004 election, and consider what might have happened if Kerry became president. Ready? Here we go...

Kerry becomes president. Heinz wins the ketchup concession for troops in Iraq. Given the new First Lady's connection with Heinz, everyone on the right starts screaming:

"THIS WAR WAS JUST ABOUT KETCHUP!!"

Kerry lamely tries to defend the actions of his administration, noting that Heinz was unfortunately the only company large enough, and with sufficient international infrastructure, to meet the demands of the military contract. But it doesn't satisfy the right. They continue to scream: "KERRY'S KEEPING THE TROOPS IN IRAQ JUST TO FATTEN THE WALLETS OF HIS WIFE'S RICH KETCHUP BUDDIES!!!"

Michael Moore does a re-release of his film, naming it now: Farenheit/57, which puts forth the notion that in fact the whole reason we attacked Afghanistan was to give American corporations access to cheaper tomatoes. Clever, out-of- context film editing, quoting everyone from Jacques Chirac to Ariel Sharon, makes this "ketchup conspiracy" seem--on the screen--quite believable. The movie is wildly successful and in '05 wins the Cannes Film Festival award.

Michael Moore gives speeches in Europe, based around the theme: "See, I TOLD you Americans were the dumbest people on earth. NOW will you believe me?" ...And these speeches are greeted with cheering, out-of-control, European fans.

Meanwhile, back in the U.S., religious-right demonstrators take to the streets across the south, holding aloft signs saying: "No War For Ketchup!" and marching on county courthouses where the violent minority among them try to install Ten Commandment plaques in prominent places. Police are called and outbreaks of fighting ensue.

Several prominent clerics in Iraq note that ketchup in America is most widely used as an adornment for the flesh of the unclean pig, and proclaim, as a result, that the American administration is trying to defile all muslims. The Arab "street" goes nuts, erupting in violence throughout the Middle East. At American embassies world- wide, angry crowds gather, frequently tossing glass jars of ketchup against the doors. In Pakistan, one of these broken ketchup jars bursts over the heads of Marines guarding the entrance, drenching them in red liquid. The Captain of the Guard, seeing this from a distance, incorrectly believes the red stains on his marine guards mean that his men are wounded and under attack. He orders his troops to fire into the crowds, and nearly a hundred protestors are killed.

A Taliban prisoner in U.S. custody finally breaks, after being led around naked by a leash, and tips off interogaters to the hiding place of Osama Bin Laden and Al Zawakari. Armed with this knowledge, Interpol agents arrested Michael Moore at a big anti-U.S. rally in London, and—in full public view—stripped off his clothes and unzipped his skin…revealing Bin Laden and Zawakari hiding inside the now-empty shell.

“We figured it was the last place any of the infidels would look,” explained Bin Laden at a press conference later that day in Scotland Yard. “Only the decadence of the Western lifestyle makes it possible to believe that a human being could actually be that large.”

It was later determined that the real Michael Moore had been killed years earlier in a car accident in which his Prius was crushed by a General Motors Suburban driven by Al Kaida agents. Moore’s body was then smuggled out of the country where it’s skin was removed and kept intact as a hideout of last resort. Bin Laden confessed that he and Zarakawi had been living inside the skin for over two years, and—quite honestly—were ready to come out.

“The Kuran tells us that the skin of the pig is unclean,” noted Laden. “But the inside of Michael Moore is an even greater abomination to Allah.”

As the two Al Kaeda leaders were transported in a police vehicle to a secure location, Susan Sarandon, driving a stretched limo, crashed into them. In the ensuing confusion, Bin Laden and Zawakari escaped, caught the EuroStar train at Waterloo station, hijacked it inside the Eurotunnel, and drove it at 200 miles per hour through the Gare du Nord, where it jumped the tracks and slashed out of control through Paris before crashing into the Eiffel Tower and bringing it down.

The next day Jacques Chirac held a news conference at which he condemmed terrorism in the strongest terms, and vowed that France would respond most forcefully to “this outrage.” A few hours later the French airforce bombed the newly-rebuilt Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. Asked to account for this strange response at the UN General Assembly, the French ambassador said: “Well, it’s not like there was no precedent.”

China’s delegation walked out in anger, after declaring that the Chinese Navy would immediately commence a blockade of Taiwan, by way of retribution.

Yet these events were eclipsed when Colonel Khaddafi announced he was not letting the UN arm’s inspectors—whom he’d invited into Libya—leave the country until they’d found the WMD’s.

“I know we had some,” explained the frustrated military strongman. “But we forgot where we hid them. That’s why I wanted the UN weapons inspectors to come here. And they’re not leaving until they find my WMD’s!”

Sweden’s Hans Blix, head of the delegation, voiced his opinion that Libya had no such weapons. Iran, sensing an opportunity to join the community of nations with a friendly gesture, formally invited Blix to their country and suggested he try to find some of theirs, just for practice. Back in Stockholm the Nobel committee chose that moment to announce their new Peace Prize winner: The Palestinian Suicide Bombers—in aggregate. Outraged, Israel began building a new fence, this one entirely encircling Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and most of Egypt. “We need this for our security,” Sharon stated in a Tel Aviv press conference.

With the French now having joined the war on terror, Fox News analyst Bill O’Reilly ended his boycott of France, and replaced it with a boycott of Massachusets, proclaiming the state “no more than a conquered territory of BarbaraStreisLand.”

...Well, I could go on, but I think we all now can see clearly the dangers that might have ensued had we elected to the White House a stooge of "Big Ketchup". -jv