The Breakfast Table

It’s Cool To Be a Ghoul

Dear Will,

Dick Cheney: Dead Man Talking–and a brilliant addition to the ticket. Talk about a cross-over vote. The living-impaired are an underserved minority, and they’ve been voting for years in Philadelphia, Boston, Jersey City, and Chicago–all Democratic towns.  Al Gore is a goner. (But I don’t mean that in a pejorative, bigoted or condescending way.)

I’m not sure a living, breathing man–if you can find one this season–has a prayer in November. The 2000 mantra: “It’s cool to be a ghoul.” Look at Larry King. You might not like him, but he has a huge audience, and he’s clearly un-dead. And the M.O. you identified for Cheney–lots of vascular work followed by a conspicuous absence of pulse–holds true for King, too. David Letterman’s alive, but one or two more bypasses, and who knows? He might end up like Cheney and King–and Strom Thurmond, too.

Then there’s Al Gore. Is he visible through a thermal sensor? I’m guessing his watch battery throws off more heat than he does. Of course, if that’s the case, the race remains competitive; Cheney won’t be able to dent the dead demographic with a gravedigger’s shovel.

I see a power clique forming. It’s going to get to the point where a guy who can see his own reflection in the mirror won’t be able to get arrested in this town. The important meetings will be taken between sundown and dawn. Secret Service agents will be chasing after executive hearses. All the big donors will be walking around with one kidney–and don’t even THINK about going to the A-list parties without a pint of blood under one arm.

It’s enough to wake the living.