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BUREAUCAT: I don’t know. Maybe we’d better turn back. I hear Saddam has all kinds of weapons of mass destruction.
SCARECROW: You want to chicken out? Go ahead. But I’m going to make sure Liberty’s safe and gets back to New York City where she belongs, even if I don’t get a brain out of the deal.
TIN MAN: Yeah. I’m with you, Scarecrow. I don’t even care if I get a new ticker. I’m not going to let that madman intimidate me.
LIBERTY: Gosh, you guys are the best. I just know liberty will be safe with George Bush and Dick Cheney at my side. How could I go wrong? Come on Colin. Its not very far now. We’ll be alright if we stick together
BUREAUCAT: Okay. But I sure hope this Wuzard is all that he’s cracked up to be.
LIBERTY: Of course he is. Let’s go.
NARRATOR: They walk on and finally get to the capitol. They walk up the steps and knock at the door.
A sprightly little intern opens the door
CHATTY CAPPY: Hello, I’m CHATTY CAPPY:, your capitol guide. How can I help you?
SCARECROW: Hi Cappy, I’m S. These are my friends, T, B, and L. We want to see the Wuzard
CHATTY CAPPY: Oh, I see. Do you have an appointment?
SCARECROW: No, but….
CHATTY CAPPY: Do you have any money?
TIN MAN: No, you see, we….
CHATTY CAPPY: (Puzzled) Influential friends? Do you have any influential friends I could talk to?
LIBERTY: No. Why do we…?
CHATTY CAPPY: (Starting to get annoyed) What about votes. Do you have any votes with you?
LIBERTY: No. But if we could just talk….
CHATTY CAPPY: Huh. You’re wasting my time. Besides, it’s August. The Wuzard isn’t here. Go away.
She slams the door.
BUREAUCAT: Ah, hell, she’s as bad as a bureau cat.
SCARECROW: Well what do ya think about that?
TIN MAN: (Angrily to Scarecrow) You don’t think. You don’t have a brain, remember.
SCARECROW: Put a lid on it you old can of hot air
TIN MAN: (sarcastically): Oh, that hurts
LIBERTY: Stop it! Fighting’s not going to get us anywhere. What are we gonna do now. I was so happy (Starts to cry)
NARRATOR: Suddenly up in the sky a sky writing plane flies over leaving behind the words “GIVE ME LIBERTY”
A great cry of fear comes out of the capitol.
BUREAUCAT: Ah ha. I knew someone was inside. Let’s knock again.
They knock on the door. The intern peers out
CHATTY CAPPY: You again. What do you want? Can’t you see there’s a world crisis happening. We’re busy. Go away.
LIBERTY: But I’m Liberty
CHATTY CAPPY: Oh my gosh. I didn’t know. That’s different. Wait here. No, come in. No, go away. No. Come in. Come in. Oh gosh what do I do, what do I do?
LIBERTY: Calm down. It’s not like the world is coming to an end
CHATTY CAPPY: But it might. No, you’re right, come on in.
They all walk into the capitol.
CHATTY CAPPY: Now you wait right here and I’ll make sure you get an audience
SCARECROW: We don’t need an audience. We want to see the Wuzard
TIN MAN: That’s what she means straw for brains
SCARECROW: junk pile
BUREAUCAT: Ya know, I think I’ll wait outside. I don’t really need courage. What the heck good does courage do for a bureau cat anyway? I just want to go back to my desk. Have a nice quiet lunch. See ya later guys.
Bureaucat starts to leave. Tin Man stops him.
TIN MAN: Come on fur face. Buck up.
The intern reappears with a chipper smile on her face.
CHATTY CAPPY: Guess what! The Wuzard will see you.
SCARECROW: Just like that?
CHATTY CAPPY: Just like that. I guess you do have influence.
NARRATOR: She winks saucily at the scarecrow as he passes and he pinches her butt.
TIN MAN: (Whispers) You idiot! What were you thinking?
SCARECROW: I don’t know. She likes me. She’s kind of cute, don’t you think?
BUREAUCAT: Wroor ruf.
NARRATOR: The little group is ushered into the well of the capitol. There is a long table and a microphone in the center of the room. On the other side of the table is a large raised dais which is empty. The here is a great empty pause, then
US: I am US, the strong and invincible, who are you and why are you bothering me?
LIBERTY: Where are you?
US: I am here. Just speak into the microphone.
LIBERTY: I am Liberty, uh, the, uh, oh, well… and, these are my friends
US: Silence whippersnapper. I know who you are.
LIBERTY: Then why’d you ask?
US: Cheeky twit, you dare to ask my help to get you back to New York City? Do I look like a Greyhound Bus?
LIBERTY: Uh… No. I…
US: You, Scarecrow.
Scarecrow totters up to the mike. Yes your honor….
US: You wispy, chinless, beer swilling sack of straw. You have the audacity to come here asking for a brain.
SCARECROW: Well, I met liberty and she and I and I thought….
US: YOU THOUGHT!!!
US: And you, Tin Man
Tin man clatters up to the microphone
US: You cadaverous, clattering, clanking clutter of canisters. You want a heart, do you?
TIN MAN: Yes, well, I mean, I was hoping….
US: IDIOT. And Bureaucat
Bureaucat doesn’t stick around to hear what US has to say about him. He runs screaming out of the room.
Liberty, Tin Man and Scarecrow are whispering among themselves and starting to back out of the room
US: BE STILL!! US has every intention of granting your requests.
LIBERTY: (Amazed) you do?
US: Yes. But before I do, you are going to have to do one tiny little task for me.
Tin Man and Scarecrow huddled together: Uh oh.
LIBERTY: What task is that oh strong and invincible US
US: I want you to go to Iraq and disarm Saddam.
Dead silence
Scarecrow starts laughing.
SCARECROW: Oh man. I may be brainless but I ain’t that stupid. You want us to go to Iraq and destroy Saddam’s weapons?
Tin Man joins in the mirth.
TIN MAN: I don’t think I have the heart for that, Mr. Wuzard.
LIBERTY (Shaking her head ruefully): I was pretty sick of New York anyway.
US:I’m serious about this. Scarecrow, how are you ever gonna be reelected if you don’t do something to really kick terrorism’s ass, huh? Don’t you want to get the guy who tried to kill your Daddy? You have to finish what he started. Besides, isn’t it your God-given duty to democratize the Middle East?
SCARECROW: Yeah, you’re right. Why didn’t I think of that?
US: You don’t have a brain, remember? (To himself “dumb sucker)
SCARECROW Oh yeah.
US: And Liberty, are you satisfied sitting on that stupid little island of yours? Why, you could be out there doing something meaningful. You could liberate all the down trodden women in the Middle East. Don’t you care about those poor creatures? They’re just dying to be liberated.
LIBERTY: That’s a low blow. Of course I’m sick of sitting on that stinking island. My face should be seen in the desert. And of course women’s rights are important, too.
US (seductively): Don’t forget what those horrible terrorists did to your city.
LIBERTY: That’s right! Oh, but that wasn’t Saddam. That was some other guy. I forget his name.
US: Who cares? They’re all the same out there in the desert. A bunch of Godless animals. You’re the essence of ‘Merica, Liberty. You’ve got to spread your wings, girl, and fly.
LIBERTY: You’re right. I have a mission! I won’t have to wear those horrible black robes will I? I don’t look good in black.
US: Of course not. You’ll be a standard bearer for freedom. Wear your green with pride, woman!
TIN MAN: (to Bureaucat who has crept back into the room) uh oh, I’m not sure I like how this is going.
LIBERTY: How would we get to the Middle East, oh great and powerful Oz?
US: You’d go as UN weapons inspectors.
LIBERTY: Uh, won’t Saddam try to stop us?
US: Of course not. You’d going under the flag of international diplomacy.
SCARECROW: I thought the UN was an irrelevant bureaucratic impediment.
US: Of course it is. But it can be useful at times. This is one of them.
TIN MAN and BUREAUCAT: Hey you guys, you aren’t seriously thinking about this are you?
Liberty and Scarecrow look at each other.
LIBERTY: I don’t know. It sounds like it might be kind of fun.
SCARECROW: What harm can we do? We might just bring about world peace and democracy.
BUREAUCAT: You might start a war.
US: Tish tosh.
SCARECROW: A war? That would be exciting. Shake thing up. Get my public’s mind off of other things, like AIDS decimating Africa, and global warming. Boy. If the war runs into summer, it might just keep people’s mind off the weather. Then they’ll take vacations and spend a lot of money and shore up the economy. Where’s my cell phone? I’m gonna send a few hundred thousand soldiers to Kuwait. Get them primed and ready. Maybe even set off an international incident or two. That’s always fun. What do you think Liberty?
LIBERTY: I think it’s just what the country needs to help it get over Post Traumatic Trade Center Syndrome.
SCARECROW: What’s that?
LIBERTY: Never mind. You already have too much to think about.
SCARECROW: Right. So, (turning to Tin man and Bureaucrat) are you guys in, or out?
TIN MAN: Fuck it. I don’t have a heart. What do I care? But I do have a brain. If you do this and I’m not behind you, I’m out of a job in a year or so, right?
SADDAM: You got it. How about you Bureaucat? What do you want to do?
BUREAUCAT: I don’t have the guts to tell you what I think. But I ain’t stupid. If I want to be the first black president I’d better stick to you like glue.
SCARECROW: Alright! Are we gonna do this thing or what?
Act Three
NARRATOR: The four travelers are on a bumpy helicopter ride, about to be set down near the border of Iraq, in Kuwait
LIBERTY: Oh God, I’m even greener than I was before we took off. This is awful.
SCARECROW: I’m glad I’m made of straw. I’d be hocking up chunks if I were flesh and blood.
BUREAUCAT: Thanks a lot, numb nuts. Now I’m really gonna loose it. (He barfs into a bag, coughs and recovers) What the Hell was I thinking of, going along with you jerks? I’m a chicken shit. I have a yellow streak so wide it’s taken over my entire body.
TIN MAN: Oh, buck up. This is kind of fun. Gets the juices going. If I had a heart it’d be pounding away right now.
BUREAUCAT: Nah. You’d probably have a heart attack you cantankerous old clunking clutter of cans.
TIN MAN: Wanna put your money where your mouth is, fat cat?
BUREAUCAT: If I had the nerve, I would.
SCARECROW: Yeah, he would. If he had the guts, I bet he’d be King of the Cabinet today, not a sniveling civil servant.
TIN MAN: Would not.
LIBERTY: Yes he would. This is what he’d look like. Stand up for a minute Bureaucat.
Bureau cat complies
Liberty grabs an old blanket from the floor and wraps it around Bureaucat like a robe, and puts her crown on his head.
LIBERTY: See. He’d be great.
BUREAUCAT: Yeah. I’d be great. I’d be the baddest bureau cat on the block.
If I were King of the Cabinet
Not Treasurer or Secretary of Defense
I’d reach out for power and grab it
I wouldn’t spend time on the fence
(Bureaucat to SADDAM: No offense intended)
(Scarecrow leans over to Liberty and whispers: Did you tell him about that?)
(Liberty whispers back: No. I swear)
I’d be a beast, not a wus or a puff
I’d travel the halls with a woof and a wrooff
I’d show my claw and I’d get applause
If I, if I, were King
Bureaucat is cut off by the intercom coming from the pilot.
Pilot: Were landing lady and gentle… um, err, creatures. Welcome to Kuwait.
The four travelers saddle up and tumble out of the helicopter. With the exception of Liberty, they are all wearing desert combat fatigues and they all have big signs on their backs reading UN weapons inspector.
Pilot: Well, this is it folks. Good hunting.
After the helicopter flies off the travelers look at each other uneasily.
LIBERTY: Now what do we do? I don’t know about you, but I’d feel better if I had a weapon or two. Which way’s Iraq, anyway?
BUREAUCAT: Look, over there, I think I see the oil slick road. It’s mostly covered with sand, but it’s there.
SCARECROW: You’re right. Look Liberty. We can follow the oil slick road, even here in the bowels of the axis of evil. The oil slick road is everywhere. We can follow it to Baghdad, find Saddam’s hoards of weapons and destroy them once and for all. By God, I’m gonna finish up what my daddy started. With any luck, I’ll be home in time for Leno.
NARRATOR: Liberty takes a look around. Behind her she sees thousands of soldiers sitting in the desert playing little Nintendo games, getting ready for war.
LIBERTY: Oh my gosh, look what’s behind us. We’d better get those weapons fast or there’s gonna be hell to pay. What in the world were you thinking, sending all these poor boys into the desert? They think war is gonna be like shooting fish in a barrel.
NARRATOR: Meanwhile in Baghdad, Saddam’s tapping away at his laptop.
SADDAM: Curses, those infidels are at my back door. My suicide bombers failed. I’ve got to cook up something else for them. Something unpleasant, scratchy, itchy, irritating. Yes. Sand, sand. A nice sand storm will stop them.
NARRATOR: In the Kuwaiti desert the wind picks up and a nasty sand storm hits the travelers and the soldiers full force. Scarecrow is swept up into the air and lands in the middle of the American troops. Tin man gets all gunked up and his joints freeze. Liberty and Bureaucat hunker down with their pup tents and try to weather it out.
The wind blows and howls. The good spook of the north is, of course useless, having lost all his power when he gummed up the election three years ago.
Finally the wind dies down. Bureaucat and Liberty dig out and dust each other off. Bureaucat drinks what’s left of the water.
LIBERTY: Christ, what a blow job. I wonder where Scarecrow and Tin Man have got to.
BUREAUCAT: I don’t know, but I think they’re on their own now. Tin man’s feelings won’t be hurt. He’s a heartless creature. He’ll just keep getting gunked up. Last I saw of Scarecrow he was flying away towards the army. I’ll bet he landed on his feet. If he landed on his head, well, he doesn’t have a brain so, no damage done. He was all hot and heavy on the idea of war. Let him get a taste of what it’s like. Dumb damn cowboy.
LIBERTY: So should we go on without them?
BUREAUCAT: What else can we do?
LIBERTY: You’re right. You know, that sand storm gave me a nice cleaning. I haven’t felt this good in, oh, about a century. Nothing like a good sandblasting for the complexion. How do I look? Am I brighter, shinier?
Bureau cat: Oh for Christ’s sake. Can we focus?
LIBERTY: Humph.
BUREAUCAT: Alright (sarcastically) you look more beautiful than the fucking Sphinx. We need a plan. We’re out here in the middle of the desert without any water and we need to get to Baghdad.
LIBERTY: Well. I don’t need water. Maybe I’ll just stand here for a hundred years or so and see if the huddled masses miss me. I don’t get any appreciation and now here I am stuck in the desert with a cowardly bureau cat. This sucks big time.
BUREAUCAT: You. It’s always about you. Poor little Liberty sucked away from her Island. Oh, Bureaucat (talking to himself), she says to me so sweetly, why don’t you come with us. I’m sure US will give you some courage. Well, you can sit and erode in the desert for all I care. I’m going to Baghdad to pursue some diplomacy.
LIBERTY: Not without me, you’re not.
BUREAUCAT: Oh, so now you’re coming? What if I don’t want you? Who needs you, anyway?
LIBERTY: But, I’m Liberty. I stand for American Freedom. Everyone needs me.
BUREAUCAT: You know what I think? I think you’ve gone mad, just like your twisted sister, Justice.
LIBERTY: You leave her out of it. I’m coming with you, like it or not. What’ll you do when Saddam bars his teeth at you? You’ll turn and run.
BUREAUCAT: Will not.
LIBERTY: Will too.
NARRATOR: Tin Man comes squeaking and clattering up.
Tim Man: Hey you guys. Have you seen my oil can?
BUREAUCAT: I’ve got it over here.
NARRATOR: Bureaucat does his best to un-gunk Tin Man
TIN MAN: Ah, that’s better.
BUREAUCAT: We’d given you up as lost.
TIN MAN: Typical. Everyone forgets about the vice-president. Just remember, I’m a heart beat away, so to speak, from the presidency. Where is the old straw head, anyway?
LIBERTY: Last we saw him he was flying into the Army camp.
TIN MAN: Just as well. He needs to chat up the troops. Give them something to keep them interested, fit, and in fighting form. Poor little brainless twit. That’s about all he’s good for.
LIBERTY: Do you think there’s going to be a war?
TIN MAN: Didn’t you hear him back there talking to US? He’s ready to ride the first bomb down. So what’s the plan, guys? Are we going to Baghdad?
LIBERTY: There’s the road over there.
BUREAUCAT: To Baghdad?
LIBERTY and TIN MAN: To Baghdad
We’re off to see the bad spook
The evil spook of Iraq
We hear he is a kook of a spook
If ever a spook there was
If ever oh ever a spook there was
The spook of Iraq is one because
Because because because because because
Because of the horrible things he does
We’re off to see the bad spook
The evil spook of Iraq
NARRATOR: The three travelers dance down the oil slick road. Bureaucat uses his teeth to cut through the barbed wire at the border between Kuwait and Iraq. They’re passing by an oil rig when the arm of a crane swings over and snatches Liberty and hauls her away.
TIN MAN: Oh no. Now what are we going to do?
BUREAUCAT: Well, the way I see it, this isn’t such a bad development. Liberty did stick out like a sore thumb.
TIN MAN: More like the Jolly Green Giant.
BUREAUCAT: Right. It would have been pretty difficult to slip into Saddam’s compound unnoticed with her in tow.
TIN MAN: You got that right. But shouldn’t we look for her? Try to save her?
BUREAUCAT: No. Think of her a collateral damage.
TIN MAN: You gutless wonder. But you’re right. It’s an acceptable loss – an unavoidable cost of an operation like this.
BUREAUCAT: I’m gutless and you’re heartless. What do you say we hitch a ride back to the States?
TIN MAN: Huh un. We’ve got a job to do. Time to make our way into Baghdad.
BUREAUCAT: Aren’t we were going in as arms inspectors.
TIN MAN: Look at us. Who would believe we’re arms inspectors?
BUREAUCAT: I don’t know. Scarecrow maybe.
They both laugh.
TIN MAN: Don’t worry, I have a plan.
They whisper to each other.
NARRATOR: Meanwhile, Liberty is hauled into Saddam’s compound and deposited at his front door.
SADDAM: Well, my pretty, now that I have you, what am I going to do with you? Liberty is the last thing I need.
LIBERTY: What about the trade agreements, the sanctions.
SADDAM: What good are they to me now, when I have a quarter million enemy soldiers on my doorstep?
LIBERTY: Well. That’s a problem. But you have me. Why don’t you just step down and set your people free. They want Liberty. Look at all those poor women. They all want to be democratized. You know they do. What woman in her right mind would give up the chance for a day shopping at Macy’s, or a trip to the nail salon? Just think, they could throw off those ugly old clothes and color coordinates their wardrobes. They could get good cosmetics. They could even color their hair blond if they wanted to. They could have their own credit cards and SUVs to drive their little sheiks and princesses around in.
And your children. Just think what I can offer them. Endless hours of mindless TV and video games. The smart ones can go on to learn about computers or get jobs in fast food restaurants. They can have their own cars at 16 and spend their days lying in the sun, pretending the desert is a beach, and playing rap music far into the night. They could even marry Americans.
SADDAM: Shut up, woman! You’re driving me mad. One more word and I’ll cut out your tongue.
