Saul Alinksy in Hell

Saul Alinsky is sitting at a table in the Beelzebub Bar in Hell, sipping from a flaming kerosene daiquiri. The Devil comes over and drops into a chair beside him.

Devil: Mind if I join you, Saul?

Alinsky: By all means, your Excellency!

Devil: Whew! Hot enough in here for you?

Alinsky: Meh. It’s not much worse than the heat wave over the U.S. right now.

Devil: Yeah, that’s true. Say, I’ve been watching one of your acolytes, this Obama fellow. He seems to really have taken your philosophy to heart.

Alinksy: I have to say, I’m pretty proud of him. He’s almost single-handedly turned Rules for Radicals from a revolutionary treatise into his personal biography. This latest business with brinksmanship on the debt ceiling and an all-out attempt to characterize Republicans as heartless assassins of old ladies and sick kids – I mean, the sheer chaos he’s likely to cause in the financial markets, alone, could well trigger the kind of crisis that could force Republicans, in desperation, to let him have his way. I don’t think there’s anything more I could teach Barack Obama. My hat’s off to him – or would be, if it hadn’t burned up during orientation. But forgive me, Excellency, I’m forgetting my manners. Would you like something to drink?

Devil: No, no thanks. I’m trying to watch my triglycerides. So, you think Obama can ultimately succeed in transforming the U.S. into a socialist hell-hole? To coin a phrase.

Alinsky: Well…it won’t be easy. He’s run into an unexpected bump in the road.

Devil: The Tea Party.

Alinsky: Exactly. One of my rules is that an organizer has to rub raw the resentments of the community. Unfortunately, there is that vast community of bourgeois Americans for whom the political philosophy of the Founding Fathers is something quite tangible and desirable, and their resentments are not against the existing society and its traditions – far from it! They see the country they know being seriously threatened, and have awoken to the danger and are banding together. If Obama has made one mistake, it is perhaps that he has overplayed his hand and revealed his true motives too early in the game. Doubtless he erred in taking his own propaganda too seriously during the presidential campaign and has clearly overestimated his long-term appeal.

Devil: But can the Tea Party stay united? There doesn’t seem to be any central command, and our side still controls a lot of the funding. Soros, for example. By the way, you wrote something about these fat cat progressives didn’t you?

Alinsky: I did, indeed. I think I can still repeat it verbatim: “I could persuade a millionaire on a Friday to subsidize a revolution for Saturday out of which he would make a huge profit on Sunday even though he was certain to be executed on Monday.”

Devil: Ha-ha-ha! Very good, that! Still, the Tea Party has an enormous amount of energy, even if it lacks structure and money. And there’s…you know…

Alinsky [angrily slams his glass on the table]: Sarah Palin!

Devil: Just so.

Alinsky: To think that everything I worked for finally comes to a head in the form of the perfect transformative presidency, only to run the very real risk of being thwarted by that snowbilly!

Devil: Mm-hm. And there’s Michele Bachman and maybe Rick Perry. Ah! And that youngster from Florida, waiting in the wings. What’s his name? Marco Rubio, I believe.

Alinsky [covering his ears and rocking violently back and forth]: Please, sir, don’t! I know this is part of my assigned punishment, but can’t you impose another torture? Maybe sliding down a giant razor blade in a tank of alcohol? Or doing ten thousand jumping jacks with a bowling ball strapped to each arm? If for no other reason, how about for old times’ sake? You remember, don’t you, another thing that I wrote: “The first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom was Lucifer”?

Devil: Yes, I remember; and very flattered I was, too. W-e-l-l…I’ll have to think about your request. Let’s see how your pupil makes out, shall we? Oh, look at the time! I’ve got to run and make sure Bin Laden is taking his daily bath in the flaming jacuzzi of pork fat. Ciao!