Semper Dry

Damn y’all heard of this outrage about Obama having a Marine hold an umbrella over his head during an outdoors press conference with the Prime Minister of Turkey?  First of all it seems impolite to refer to an entire country as a ‘Turkey’ but then Lebron reminded me that the Ottoman Empire lost World War I so as part of its punishment it must’ve had to rename itself.  Anyway, idiotic conservatives are all like "why can’t the man hold his own damn umbrella?"  But I think these people are missing the larger point.  Don’t get me wrong, I do sympathize with those who feel that people should hold their own umbrellas.  I myself, as a 7’2” black man, have found it near impossible to find a sufficiently tall and unracist umbrella attendant.  This forces me to take care of all my umbrella-related program activities myself, but come on people, Obama is the President of the United States!  I also mow my own lawn and clip my own toenails (though rarely at the same time), but do we really expect the POTUS to do such menial tasks himself?  And why do people care so much that it’s a Marine?  The Secret Service does all the President’s laundry, reads him his bedtime stories, and packs him his Lunchables, but I don’t hear anyone complain about that.  

Just imagine if the Obamas laid off all their staff and started doing simple everyday tasks for themselves, the unemployment rate would skyrocket!  The head umbrella dude over at the Marines has a family to feed just like you or me.  He gets laid off, and his little girl can’t go to college.  Is that what you monsters want?  He went to umbrella college for 4 years just to get laid off during a recession so the White House could save a few bucks?  HAIL NO.  He served his country nobly and protected his President from the rain, and now you want to leave him out in the rain?  I DON’T THINK SNOW.  I AIN’T DOWN WET THAT.  In the olden days a man and his umbrella jockey had a special relationship, almost like bloodbrothers.  They say blood is thicker than water, but nothing is thicker than rain.  Ponder that.  Most Americans hold their own umbrellas nowadays which may seem like a good thing, but that’s a lot of former umbrella attendants out of a job.  New Jersey is the only state that has a law against self-serve umbrella use.  I don’t think it’s a coincidence that New Jersey also happens to be the most beautiful, prosperous, and happy state.  And anyway, every American President has had his own umbrella attendant ever since an un-umbrella’d William Henry Harrison caught a fatal case of the pneumonias during his Inaugural Address.  It’s an American tradition, just like baseball, apple pies, and wars in Iraq.  

Think about what happened to the last U.S. president who foolishly decided to defy proper parasol protocol.  

 

Never forget.

Even though George W. Bush presided over America’s halcyon days, and while history will surely remember him as the dignified, principled, capable leader he was, many misguided partisans stubbornly continue to define him by his sole mistake.  In case you don’t remember, in early 2005, in a rare departure from his usual practice of moderation and judiciousness, George W. Bush insisted on holding his own umbrella.  This bold demonstration of American strength was designed to strike fear into the hearts of Islamic terrorists, but it sadly ended in disaster.  The operation proved to be too ambitious, too complex, too demanding for one man to tackle, and thus had to be abandoned halfway through.  The mission left unaccomplished, an entire nation gasped in horror.  Though this was the one and only blemish on W’s legacy, a solitary turd floating along a vast tranquil pool of immaculate chlorinated glory, his reputation never really recovered. 

It's almost as though he's not that bright or something.

Umbrellagate is just proof that Obama has learned from his predecessor’s mistake, like Dubya himself who learned from Bill Clinton that one should never use an intern’s vagina as a humidor, and Clinton who in turn learned from Bush Sr. that Japanese ambassadors, contrary to certain videos you can find on the internet, do not enjoy being vomited on. 

Mission accomplished.