The Northern Light

"People of America," said President George W. Bush at a press conference today, "our nation faces a threat of terror like we've never seen before. It's time to prepare for a long struggle against a madman determined to destroy our precious freedoms. This battle won't be easy, but it must be done, for a new enemy looms on the horizon, and if we do not fight him now, then . . ." Here the president stopped, searching for the right words. "Then we are gonna have to fight him later on."

Mr. Bush was referring to the terrorist mastermind who, in the president's own words, "may supersede the organizatorial fiendishness of bin Laden and Zarqawi combined." The man in question leads a shady network of terrorists whose exact numbers are not yet known. Only one fact seems certain about this sinister new menace: the chilling code-name he goes by. "Skeletor."

"As you can see, Skeletor commands an arsenal of deadly tricks," said Mr. Bush from the sandbox Vice President Cheney recently constructed for him in the Oval Office. Mr. Bush then held aloft an eight-inch plastic model of Skeletor that CIA operatives have confiscated from a Nebraska thrift store rumored to have connections to al-Qaida.

To astonished gasps from assembled reporters, Mr. Bush then demonstrated Skeletor's ability to carry out a devastating "power punch" whenever his spring-loaded upper torso is pivoted back more than a few degrees. Pressed for more information by reporter Helen Thomas, Bush then declassified the model of another confiscated figurine: Leechor, the "Evil Master of Power Suction," who possesses deadly suction cups on each limb and on his mouth which are, according to Bush, "really, really sticky."

The Skeletor threat has galvanized the American media.

"Skeletor has a face like a skull, which is totally creepy," said columnist George Will. "Also, the CIA says that he controls half of a sword which allows him to access the mysterious 'power of Greyskull.' Getting the other half of the sword would make him 'Master of the Universe.' If we don't spend billions of dollars to defeat this menace now, how long will it be before our shores are overrun by the hideous Beast Men that Skeletor will summon from another dimension?"

Senator Hillary Clinton echoed these sentiments, saying, "Our first concern should be our nation's security. Democrats must stand firmly and uncritically behind any massive military engagement that the president suggests, resting assured that there's plenty of time between now and the 2008 elections for us to gain political ground by taking issue with the president's inevitable mismanagement of the whole situation."

Since Homeland Security advisers anonymously leaked information regarding Skeletor this weekend, voices of dissent have risen in the left-wing "fringe" media, which claims that Skeletor is not a terrorist leader at all but merely a plastic toy manufactured in the 1980s by an American company named Mattel.

Those rumors were silenced, however, when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice showed members of the UN Security Council classified, 1987 live-action video footage of Skeletor firing lightning bolts out of his hand at bare-chested actor Dolph Lundgren.

"After watching that video, it's safe to say that anyone opposed to striking with full force at Skeletor is just godless liberal scum who enjoys seeing Americans killed and eaten alive by Islamofacist skeleton beasts," said author Ann Coulter, whose recent best-seller, "Let's Indiscriminately Take Babies Who Cry Too Much and Kill Them With Machetes Because Otherwise They're Bound To Grow Up To Become a New Generation of Whining, Brie-Eating Liberals," has sparked some controversy.

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman offered a more nuanced view.

"I may not agree with everything that the Bush administration does," said Friedman, "but I'm sure of one thing: I am far more educated about the complex factors that make up the Middle East than most Americans. Heck, I can even drop the names of Syrian and Saudi government officials I've met face-to-face. You probably don't even know where Syria is. So if I say in print that the right response to the Skeletor menace is to win over the hearts and minds of the Arab people through a sudden and massive aerial bombing campaign, the rest of you should just shut up and go along with it."

Confident in broad national support, President Bush said, "The war against Skeletor will be difficult and may cost the lives of thousands of U.S. soldiers, but we won't have to go it alone. I'm currently reaching out and forming a coalition which will include the interstellar Jedi alliance as well as the noble Autobots, a race of extraterrestrial robots capable of transforming themselves into cars and airplanes."

Responding to those who still doubt the wisdom of engaging in a costly war that may drag on for years, Mr. Bush simply said, "Maybe it's time for you naysayers to just grow up."

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