danalwyn

I haven't been flamed in far too long. I should fix that.

I feel that I should introduce you to my friend Stan.

Stan owns a deli downtown. It's a Jewish deli, primarily because Stan is, technically, Jewish, since his mother is Jewish. His father, however, was not Jewish, but was a very proud white evangelical protestant, descended from a right-winged father, a member of the far-right churches that dominated the American south and a die-hard Confederate sympathizer, and a mother who was a devout follower of the Nazi party, and the descendant of a long line of Freemasons, who escaped to America after World War II. Stan's mother's father was not Jewish either, but a member of the Black Panthers, who converted to Islam, despite being half Mexican. Stan's conception nearly caused the universe to hiccup its way into a curled up ball, but somehow we managed to straighten it out.

As a result of Stan's somewhat unique background, and the fact that he has managed to avoid being strangled by his own ethnicities, he has become the go to person for a number of things, one of them being elections. He manages elections, who gets put on the ballot, who gets elected, for the usual folks, the International Jewish Conspiracy, the vast Right Wing Conspiracy, the Nazis, the Freemasons, the Illuminati, the Muslim Secret Brotherhood, the Satanists, the Feminists (for some odd reason, probably to save on paperwork), the neo-Liberal Globalists, the Pagans, the Catholics, the Harry Potter fans, and any other conspiracy I've forgotten to mention.

"It gets so confusing sometimes," he tells me, usually while filling his deli counter with pieces of paper. "I never remember who's supposed to do what, or for who? Who's supporting John Edwards? Is it the Jews, the Freemasons, or the Nazis?"

"That's supposed to be mustard, not mayo," I remind him.

Sighing, he usually sets down the part of my sandwich that he's started. "You see what I mean."

And he always, always forgets something. From the hanging chads in Florida in 2000 ("What, you mean you didn't fix that? I thought I told someone to fix that!") to the disaster in Ohio in 2004 ("Nobody figured out how we were supposed to rig the vote in Ohio? Oh, the hell with it. Someone make it up!"), he's always forgotten something.

About a month ago, I noticed something else.

"Stan," I said, "you've forgotten something."

"What?" he asked, trying to figure out which loaf was rye and which was whole wheat.

"You forgot the candidates again."

He smacked himself in the forehead, spilling rye bread all over the floor. "I did, didn't I?"

"That's the third presidential election in a row," I reminded him.

"Don't worry, I'll think of something."

Three days later, I'm trying to get myself a roast beef on whole wheat, when he looks at me and says, "I fixed the problem. I've even retconned them in so we've always had them."

"What did you come up with?" I asked.

He takes a quick look around, like he's checking to see if his deli has been planted with listening devices. Actually it has, but all of the spies answer to him in the long run, so it doesn't really matter.

"Superheroes," he says.

"What? That's ridiculous," I say.

"I can't have a repeat of that snoozefest in 2004," he whispers, looking back and forth again, "Sooner or later, people are going to notice that we've been cutting corners on the candidates. Look, I either have to go with superheroes, or we have to go back to clown college, and renting those clowns is getting expensive."

"Fine," I tell him, waving my hands, "Superheroes it is."

And so, without further ado, I introduce the Republican candidates for President (just decided on this morning, although the past has been altered by the International Conspiracy of Evil Magicians so that you remember them), the Anti-Terrorist League of America.

Captain 9/11: Rudy Giuliani

The Leader of ATLA, Rudy Giuliani was once a scrawny boy when he was injected by the Super Soldier serum, a secret concoction developed by the government to create a new generation of super weapons, distilled from the waters of the Hudson River. As a result, Giuliani gained the extraordinary, super-human ability to become mayor of New York City.

Giuliani's tenure as mayor during 9/11 is well known, mostly because he cannot go three sentences without mentioning it. Experts frequently wonder if he even explains his role as mayor of New York during 9/11 while having sex. This appears to be his only qualification for any sort of higher office. Unfortunately, nobody knows precisely what he did as mayor during 9/11; presumably the sort of thing mayors do when terrorists crash planes into their financial districts, but it did inspire him to put on a flag-colored costume and become Captain 9/11. Leading ATLA furiously into battle, he has proved capable of outwitting government bureaucrats and most varieties of refrigerator mold, as well as being capable of making other Republican candidates look stupid. After all, they weren't mayor of New York on September 11th.

As a native New Yorker, Captain 9/11 has superhuman capacity when it comes to withstanding noise and crime. He is also qualified for office, because not even forcing Congress to pass the budget can truly be as hard as getting a cab to downtown Manhattan in the middle of the day. His weakness is that his many years in New York have immersed him in ideas that are seen as unpalatable by the wing of the Republican party who feels that fire is a dangerously progressive discovery.

The Bulk: John McCain

In the quest to build a candidate who could dominate both sides of America, the Republican National Convention experimented with the Unity bomb, a weapon so powerful that it could unite anti-War and pro-War positions in a single person. Clearly, when the bomb was developed in the late 1960s, it was far too powerful and dangerous to test on white people, and was shipped to Vietnam for experimentation. Unfortunately the bomb detonated prematurely, bathing John McCain in its brutal radiation only moments before he was captured by the North Vietnamese.

It took years for the effects of the bomb to emerge, but when they did, they exceeded all predictions. Once his honor is pricked, John McCain's normal persona is submerged beneath a patina of pure rage, a creature of the most wild and untamed piece of the subconscious, released from the restraining fetters of civilization. In his irradiated state, the Bulk is impervious to political repercussions; bribery and blackmail bounce off of his steel-hard skin, and even the power of the President's bully pulpit only makes him stronger.

Unfortunately for the RNC, the Bulk truly is an uncontrollable monster. Once his anger lets loose, his acceptable, socially conservative, stone-aged persona is lost in a sea of anger. In his Bulk form, John McCain advocates an end to torturing unconvicted (and hence innocent) prisoners. Equally dangerous, he has fallen under the siren song of the psychic being Campaign Finance Reform. Although the powerhouse of the ATLA, McCain is a danger to Republicans as much as he is to Democrats.

Recent attempts to control the Bulk using science personally developed by ~~Lex Luthor~~ Dick Cheney have proven somewhat successful, but have severely reduced his powers.

Captain Marvel II: Fred Thompson

As the 80s drew to a close, it became apparent that the RNC was going to need a new type of politician, a new warrior to face the new era, someone like Ronald Reagan. Unfortunately, by this point the man who had served as Captain Marvel in the original Anti-Communist League of America (the Republican successor to the Democrat-organized Anti-Fascist League International), had devolved to the point where he had forgotten his own name, and was regularly holding conference calls with lamp shades.

However, before he died, Republican scientists were able to take a genetic sample from former President Reagan, and were able to use it on actor Fred Thompson to create Captain Marvel II. Like the original Captain Marvel, Fred Thompson was able to use his incredible charisma to evade any serious policy question put to him, while using his guy-next-door attitude to excuse him when the lax of policy went horribly wrong, except for the minor fact that:

A) Fred Thompson had no charisma.

B) Thompson lacked Ronald Reagan's long experience as a B-movie actor. After spending World War II keeping Nazi stormtroopers from raiding Fort Knox, and saving buxom blond vacationers from hordes of ravening Japs, Reagan could at least fake an understanding of foreign policy. Thompson can only fake an understanding of the war on drugs.

Although potentially a powerful member of the ATLA, Thompson's inability to use his predecessors powers have cost him heavily. At this time it remains to be seen whether he will remain one of the most powerful men of Red America.

Mormon Man: Mitt Romney

As a boy, Mitt Romney was raised in the wilds of the state of Michigan, an existence continually under siege by Evangelists, Catholics, mainline Protestants, and, God forbid, Jehovah's Witnesses. From the age when he could first walk, he dreamed of one day reaching the promised land of Utah, a haven from this type of persecution. Resolving to accept the challenge that God laid before him, he decided one day to strike out on his own to the promised land. Somehow he ended up in Massachusetts. As a consolation prize, the agents of the Lord gave him a stone that infused him with holy power, allowing him to become Mormon Man.

Unfortunately, the power he received was tainted by a dangerous curse, and Mitt Romney became a mormon. As a superhero, he had tremendous powers to deal both harm and assistance to friends and enemies alike, but as in his normal alter-ego, he suffered from the debilitating curse he had been put under. People attempted to avoid eye contact with him at parties, even at fundraisers that he was hosting.

Growing increasingly despondent at how the world was focusing on his mormonism, he briefly tried to draw his powers from a different source, Stupidity, but quickly relented. Since then he has performed in a lackluster fashion, staying in the background of the ATLA for fear of focusing the world, once again, upon his religion.

I haven't been flamed in a while. Maybe this will do it.