My partner and I were working the day shift out of Valdez, aboard the Exxon Valdez as it negotiated its way through Prince William Sound, the Capt'n in the wheelhouse softly humming, "Who's afraid of the drunken sailor," while on the bow the 1st Mate was trying to get the only woman employed by Exxon, Amy Goodman, a rather raw recruit (who now is host to the daily syndicated comedy hour, Democracy Now), to play hide the 1st Mate's sausage with him, which she was not buying into. Little did we realize that just up ahead lay the remnants of the very same glacier that sunk the Titanic-I swear it's true-and that it held no better news for our kindly vessel. Although what it held in store for us was almost as deadly a human loss as that ill-fated cruiser. We would all, of course, have jumped ship but just ahead our only relief, if it can be called that, was the SS Republican cutter/destroyer with its cruel and menacing crew of roustabouts. My head was spinning as I realized one of its crewmates was none other than David Gergen, who, only last night, informed me on satellite CNN, and the American public, we were not genetically suited to single-payer health care. This was good to know; since my college days I had always felt educationally deprived because of the short-shrift paid eugenics there.

Years later Amy was to recall that lst Mate and his immoral proposition to her as she contemplated new and innovative ways to hide Barack Obama from the public's prying eyes, just as when he left for Martha's Vineyard during the height of the near-rabid debate over the configuration of a health care program that would include all Americans. At least, those who weren't ever sick. While he was busy pointing offshore on the beach to his daughters how far out in those days the Pilgrims vineyards ran, for supplying the grapes that went into their sacramental wine, the excess of which they sold by the thousands of kegs to their thirsty brethren in England, thirsty, that is, for a taste of God and His Righteousness until they passed out on the floor, the waters having risen covering the long-defunct vineyards from the melting Polar Caps giving us today the first real proofs of Global Warming (c. 1630). That, at least, is what I've always been told.

... Then there was the case of his having to play dodg'em with the paparazzi while there and attending a corporate-sponsored dinner in his honor.

Amy had her doubts he even really wanted universal health coverage-at least any more than he wished to withdraw from Iraq or Afghanistan-but what could she do? There was also in her memory that Republican gunboat with its heartless crew that merrily passed them by as the Valdez was sinking, the crew still on it. Fortunately, of course, it didn't sink right then and there any more than the federal court system has made Exxon pay-up on its indebtedness to the people of Prince William Sound. Was he a closet Republican? That thought passed through her brain like an acid rush, but she quickly discounted such a possibility. She had, after all, heard each and every one of those fine velvet speeches he rendered in the campaign. What would he do for an encore? Gad, she pondered a moment, another four years of BO to deal with? BS was the thought that came to her and stubbornly would not leave. So what does one do when the alternative to a bad choice is even worse? Change the subject, right?

So each week thereafter she focused her show more and more on the pathetic days of W, our original sin, and less and less on his successor, our Pandora's Box. There was little choice anymore, she concluded. As a result, her "comedy hour" came more and more to resemble a re-make of the Ed Sullivan Variety Hour, with more stand-up and jugglers. Though, of course, they were acts by the laid-back, casual Progressives and Liberals of the day. And lasting a long time on television, and getting rich somehow, and simply growing-old became, increasingly, her simple goals.

She would never forget Alaska, though. It became, in her mind, as unforgettable as the black oil stains on her feet that had permanently stayed with her since ...