Bunker Mode: Pelosi Under Siege

[klaxon sounds]

NANCY PELOSI: Red Alert! Damn! Get to your stations, people. Moving to DEFCON 1–imminent loss of the House. Steny–what’s happening?

HOYER: [points to computer screen] Look here, Commander: concession rumors, rising in the blogosphere. We’re shooting them down as fast as we can, but some are getting through.

PELOSI: Stay on it. Commence firing at their launchers. Anything else?

HOYER: A Fox News recon team continues probing our perimeter.

PELOSI: Probably O’Reilly’s unit. Keep him off me. Tim?

KAINE: Skelton [MO], Spratt [SC], and Dingell [MI] report taking direct hits from precision-targeted spots, sir. They’re requesting additional air support. Uh, Commander, we don’t have the resources to . . . .

PELOSI: I know. Triage Grayson [FL], Driehaus [OH], and Perriello [VA].

BILL CLINTON: Ah’d think twice about Grayson, Nan. Feisty sucker, that one. Give him a little more time.

PELOSI: [aside to Kaine] Who let Clinton in here?

HOYER: Eliot Spitzer from CNN’s Parker Spitzer is on hold, sir. Might be worth a few minutes of your time.

PELOSI: [picks up] Eliot, how are you and Kathleen today?

SPITZER: Kathleen’s not around, Nancy. What are you wearing?

PELOSI: [hangs up] Geez! I’m a grandmother.

JAMES CLYBURN: It’s looking dire in the Philadelphia Theater, sir. We need a miracle to avoid suffering heavy casualties. Lord forgive us for sending those poor souls into battle without ammunition.

PELOSI: Don’t give up just yet. [dials phone] Eric? Activate “Operation Fat Tuesday” in PA, Sector Tango. [hangs up; dials another number] Panther Central, this is Mother Load [sic]. You’re on.

CLYBURN: What’s that about?

PELOSI: Our Philly allies will deliver a couple of squads in civvies to designated polling places in the region just before 8:00 p.m. A sympathetic judge has agreed to extend voting hours in those stations until midnight to avoid disenfranchising anyone.

HOYER: Then, under cover of darkness, SEIU and union voter press gangs will sweep the streets and homeless shelters, pick up thousands of vagrants, transport them to the polls, and help them cast ballots. It’ll cost us some cigarettes.

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: Commander Reid is on the line from the panic room in the senate bunker, sir.

PELOSI: Put it on speakerphone. Harry, what’s up?

REID: The election is lost.

PELOSI: [signals Hoyer to break connection] Loser.

CLYBURN: The action’s heating up in Wisconsin and Minnesota, Commander.

PELOSI: Dispatch force multiplier teams to hot zones in those states. They’ll assist indigenous troops in door-to-door and phone bank offenses.

KAINE: Barney Frank is on line 2. He insists on speaking to you, sir.

PELOSI: [to Hoyer] On speaker. Hey Barney, you . . . .

FRANK: Don’t interrupt me, Nancy. I . . . .

PELOSI: [breaks connection] No more calls, Steny.

HOYER: Sir, Senator Boxer just faxed a request. She’s ringing GOP stronghold Orange County polling places with acoustic repulsors, but she’s running short. Wants to know if we have any to spare.

PELOSI: Negative. Tell her to call the California Prison Guards’ Union. Chris, are all our PSYOPS units deployed?

VAN HOLLEN: Yes, sir. Unmarked vans have been cruising tossup districts since 6:00 a.m. local, blasting out, “VOTE REPUBLICAN” at an eardrum-shattering 150 decibels.

HOYER: Situation reports are beginning to come in from the east coast, Commander. We’ve identified three dozen contests that are trending more heavily to the enemy than expected.

PELOSI: Key in the pre-programmed Code Red mass emergency phone notification system for GOP neighborhoods in those precincts. How’d I word message? Oh, yeah: “Warning: you’re advised to lock your doors and stay home until polls close and the danger of voting Republican has passed.”

HOYER: Well, I edited the message to end, “stay home until the danger has passed,” Commander. Hope you don’t mind.

PELOSI: Whatever. Chris, alert Blitzer and the network anchors to begin spreading disinformation on poll closing times at 4:00 p.m. eastern. What’s the status of our efforts to disrupt Fox’s reporting?

HOYER: When Beck comes on, one of our Media Matters friends will call the Fox switchboard and mutter that Beck’s show is a bomb in their lineup. Good chance they’ll misconstrue it and evacuate the building.

PELOSI: Our legal teams report in?

HOYER: Yes, sir. All fifty are in place. They’ll challenge any contest we’ve lost by ten percent or less. Democratic Secretaries of State are standing by to assist.

CLYBURN: A lot of our people out there are in harm’s way, Commander. A word from you would raise morale.

PELOSI: I’ll text them this: ”We shall fight them in the sushi bars, we shall fight them on the campuses, we shall fight them in the Starbucks. I shall remain a big spender. I have nothing to offer but mud, debt, and a shot and a beer.”

HOYER: Sir, will you pull the trigger on “Operation Scorched Earth” if you lose the Speakership?

PELOSI: Yes, g-d forgive me. I’ll signal Globe Magazine to drop the “Boehner and the Sheep” bomb in a special post-election edition.

CLINTON: Nancy, no! The fallout!

PELOSI: Politics ain’t beanbag. You getting soft, old man?