N.O. Pundit

The Anti-Bush Crowd #1

The tofu lobby had always felt a bit of a second class citizen around the cheese lobby. "Look at those peacocks," the tofu lovers would hiss to themselves, "do they really not know how bad cheese is for you, or is it all just shameless hubris?" Many of their members would lob incendiary comments to the public about the dangers of cheese, most of which were patently false. They found themselves increasingly defining their lobby not on the factors that made tofu good, but on those factors that made cheese bad. Finally, they came up with the perfect slogan for their lobby (so they thought), one which completely communicated THE TRUTH:

TOFU: THE ANTI-CHEESE!

The cheese lobby of course knew of some of the contorted gesticulations going on in the tofu lobby, as several of the lobbyists from each group played golf together. As a whole, the cheese lobby didn't care much at all what the tofu lobby did.

One day, one of the tofu lobby elder statesmen said to his colleagues, "Ladies and gentlemen, let us try and mend fences with the cheese lobby. Dialogue and honesty will benefit us all." So delegates from the tofu lobby and the cheese lobby travelled to New Orleans to try and create a new beginning, a neosymbiosis as it were, between the two groups.

On the morning of the first day of their historic meeting, it was decided that each lobby would meet separately to come up with a list of the five most important beliefs held in their respective groups. It was thought, and hoped for, that these beliefs could be shared in the afternoon session to start creating bridges of understanding and communication between the two.

After a satisfying lunch of crawfish etoufee and bread pudding with rum sauce, they were ready to share their beliefs with each other. A sense of decorum and good will (and perhaps a little rum sauce) was quite present amongst all the delegates as they effusively offered the other group to start first. Finally, after some giddiness, the tofu lobby finally accepted. Their spokesperson walked up to the podium and smiled to the assembled tofu and cheese lobbyists, and was heartened to see genuine smiles beaming back at him. She cleared her throat, and started in:

"Ladies and gentlemen. It is with great pleasure to share with all of the assembled professionals, the tofu lobby's five core beliefs."

Smiles of anticipation radiated back at her.

"Without these beliefs, we would be a rudderless ship, lacking definition in a world which demands order and coherence."

Both the tofu and the cheese folks were beginning to lean forward in their seats.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the tofu lobby's number one belief is: we hate cheese ... "

Posted by nopundit at January 8, 2004 05:42 PM