DATELINE: WASHINGTON
Donald Trump, the President of the United States, was hosting a Black History Month event in the White House this past week to honor a special guest when tragedy struck.
Trump, accompanied by special White House communications director Omarosa Manigualt, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, and other aides with spell-checker-unfriendly names, was lauding his guest, black social reformer and writer Frederick Douglass, for his ongoing achievements. "He's done an amazing job and is getting recognized more and more, I notice." Trump said.
Douglass, who still looked imposing despite having been dead since 1895, rose to thank Trump for his comments. "I am humbled, sir," he said, "to be a guest in this hallowed house for the first time in over a hundred years, and I am glad you have finally taken note of my writings and my service as ambassador to Haiti."
Trump, unaware that Douglass was no longer the U.S. ambassador to Haiti on account of a federal rule prohibiting dead people from continuing to serve in the diplomatic corps, was beginning to ask Douglass about the current state of affairs in Port-au-Prince when White House aide Kellyanne Conway frantically ran in to tell Trump of a terrorist massacre in Bowling Green, Kentucky.
Fountain Square Park, Bowling Green, Kentucky, moments before the terrorist attack.
Conway gave the grim report. The attack, said to have been carried out six years earlier, did not happen. It involved no Arab terror commandos, nor did it involve any deadly weapons. As many as 63,616 people - the entire population of Bowling Green - were not killed or wounded. No one else was injured.
Fountain Square Park, Bowling Green, Kentucky, moments after the terrorist attack.
Douglass, upon hearing the news, looked unnerved. "Mr. President," the long-deceased historical figure said, "If there is no struggle, there is no progress. It thus follows that if there is no attack, there is no crisis. I am very saddened to hear about this terrorist incident that didn't happen, and I am as shocked by it as you are. I pledge my full support to you in your commitment to do nothing and to take no action in responding to this dastardly non-deed."
Trump nodded. "Thanks, Fred," he said.
Douglass made himself available to go to Kentucky and comfort the residents whose lives were not torn apart by terrorism and went on without incident. He hoped to speak to the workers at the local General Motors assembly plant that is famous for producing the Chevrolet Corvette and the Cadillac XLR, workers at the headquarters of the Fruit of the Loom undergarment company, and the Fruit of the Loom guys.
Trump graciously accepted.
Douglass then conferred with Trump in the Oval Office (below). Moments after Douglass left for Kentucky, British Prime Minister Theresa May called Trump and offered to send MI-6's top secret agent, James Bond, to Kentucky to help American intelligence not investigate what didn't happen in Bowling Green, and Trump expressed his gratitude, quoting Ronald Reagan's admiration for Bond. "James Bond is a man of honor," President Reagan said in 1983, "a symbol of real value to the free world. Of course some critics might say that Bond is nothing more than an actor in the movies. But then we've all got to start somewhere."
UPDATE: Douglass is still in Kentucky, touring Bowling Green in a Cadillac XLR, fresh off the assembly line - astonishing, given the fact that production of the XLR ceased in 2009 - being driven by Elvis.
(Disclaimer: The opening quote from Trump and the Reagan quote are both true.)
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