addam's in the way.
There's ol' Saddam, all surrendered up and getting de-loused by the hairless American hygiene guy in the rubber gloves all over CNN.
There's the political critics and media watchdogs already explano-interpreting why he'll never come to trial and shouldn't come to trial and will be Jack Ruby'd in any case.
And.
Buried like a dictator in the desert, by all this State of the Empire business, is Michael Moore – ethicist about town.
Moore, it seems, had the bad luck to be sneaking out of the very tanning salon the CIA was using to save money in its terrorist deportation program.
Then, when they realized they had Michael Moore (Paul Wolfowitz's "Jack of Clubs" in The Alternative Deck), the scramble was on to establish his Canadian citizenship and get him headed due north pronto.
News of America news analyst Arly Mudge caught up with Moore as he was being loaded into an unmarked Hummer this side of the Detroit-Windsor tunnel.
I interviewed Mudge for NOA while he was working on a story about the Defense Reutilization and Marketing Service (DRMS), located in Battle Creek, Michigan.
He drives a duck-yellow '62 Volvo and wears a faded field-green bucket hat that reads NEWFOUNDLAND.
The hat's how I found him. In the absence of stronger social ties, we both belong to The Organization For People Who Wear These Hats (TOFPWWTH).
He's a messy (or maybe that's merry) pudge, as we say in Canada, with Sally Ann satchel and ex-intellectual goatee in previously enjoyed earth colors.
We greet each other according to the protocols of the ancient & beloved Order of The Hat – "Whoa, eh?"
We're at the only Starbucks in Battle Creek. It's in the only hotel.
Mudge comes back with a mocha and he vodkas her up an inch.
I get out Old Reliable, my lined canary newsprint pad (5 for $6.99 at Staples) and my Panasonic SV-AV30 ($336.87 everywhere), which comes Internet enabled.
"C'mon!" he says. "Half an inch!"
He's waving the Absolut.
I shake my head because I want to be on track for people postaling me through my blog later.
"Hey! I fergot!" he moans. "You people say centimeter!"
There's an ugly quiet in the room. The guy in the ten gallon hat holding up USA Today and looking totally personal about America's Mad Cow thing (connections to Canada always appearing in the first hundred words) lets a blast go out his nostrils and turns his one-piece upper body to look around there under the extra spicy buffalo head.
"Whoa, eh," I go.
Then we're into it.
Michael Moore's a pudgy patriot who has always seemed plain attractive, in the down-to-earth sense, to Mudge and News of America publisher, Wally Woodman.
He is described by the international media as a comedian and film-maker.
Bowling For Columbine, his effective exposé of American gun violence and its industrial / institutional sides, won an Oscar in the U.S. and a fifteen-minute standing ovation at Cannes.
In his Guardian interview he identified himself as being in the American mainstream. Most Americans, he said, are not Bushies.
NOA So.
Mudge Yeah.
NOA You interviewed him.
Mudge Sorta.
NOA Wuttid you think?
Mudge I dunno. It was kinda dark.
NOA Detroit.
Mudge Yeah.
NOA But I mean.
Mudge Yeah.
NOA Where's it all headed.
Mudge Yeah, eh?
NOA Do you think Moore'll be assassinated?
Mudge I think he's in the Mark Twain – Kurt Vonnegut tradition.
NOA Oh, yeah.
Mudge Except now he's in Canada.
NOA Did you know the Brits used to deport English Catholics to Newfoundland? That's what "The Rock" was. Australia for Papists.
Mudge Whoa.
NOA Totally.
Mudge So.
NOA How's he come back from Canada?
Mudge He tries to get into the embassy.
NOA Oh, yeah.
Mudge Which is, like, a Civil War ironclad.
NOA Okay.
Mudge It's like. The stealth embassy.
NOA Oh.
Mudge I shit you not.
NOA So.
Mudge How's he get in?
NOA Yeah.
Mudge He's got buds up there.
NOA Oh.
Mudge John Ralston Saul. Toy boy for this Governor-General woman.
NOA Really.
Mudge Yeah.
NOA What'd he do?
Mudge He wrote The Unconscious Civilization, which is about corporations getting to be institutions.
NOA I should do him.
Mudge Totally.
NOA Who else.
Mudge Dan Aykroyd.
NOA Oh.
Mudge Margaret Atwood.
NOA I'm reading The Handmaid's Tale.
Mudge Really?
NOA Yeah.
Mudge Jesus.
NOA Yeah.
Mudge He's not coming back, is he?
NOA Moore.
Mudge Yeah.
NOA No.
Mudge It's like –
NOA Okay.
Mudge They invented Canada.
NOA Whoa.
Mudge You know?
NOA Yeah.
Mudge Like.
NOA Canada's a construction.
Mudge Okay.
NOA You go there.
Mudge Yeah.
NOA And you say to yourself.
Mudge - ?
NOA It's not real. It's too. Nice.
Mudge Yeah.
NOA Too. Quiet.
Mudge I know.
NOA I mean.
Mudge Yeah.
NOA They could of.
Mudge Created it.
NOA Like Wag The Dog.
Mudge Yeah.
NOA Disney.
Mudge Yeah.
NOA I mean.
Mudge They've got thirty billion dollars a year.
NOA The U.S Intelligence Community.
Mudge Yeah.
NOA And they've always field-tested mind-control there.
Mudge Yeah.
NOA And they did SARS.
Mudge Yeah.
NOA And they want the water.