Episode Two: "Who Wants to Be President of the War on Terror?"

RHODA:
You're not gonna believe this, Mary.

MARY:
A smell changes -- thins the circumstance. I hope for meat, for yogurt, for a violent fish tank, for a solemn occasion of blankets and peculiar sniping mice.

RHODA:
Get this. The Defense Department says terrorism "may never be fully suppressed." I wonder why they didn't think of this on September 20, 2001. During Bush's speech to a joint session of Congress. When he said the enemy wasn't Al Qaeda, but instead the enemy was a type of warfare called "terrorism."

MARY:
If Osama had lined up 19 acolytes in a ditch firing guns at Americans -- instead of sneaking them on a plane -- I guess this would've been OK.

RHODA:
"That's not terrorism, it's trench warfare!" the Pentagon would have said. "Let's wait till they run out of bullets."

MARY:
Then the CIA could go back asleep under the porch steps next door. And Bush could chase the milk-bottle-cap-ring his creepy wife hid under the rug. Fuck them.

RHODA:
Wait. It gets better, Mary. In speech at Fort Bragg, Dr. Jerrold M. Post "explained that active dissention is an important part of democracy" --

MARY:
Oh, really?

RHODA:
-- but then he added that dissension "can be difficult to prevent from turning to violence -- a bleak prospect for Americans who value a free society." I can't believe the Defense Department doesn't fucking know how to spell dissension.

MARY:
Rhoda, dissention is a variant of dissension. I just looked it up.

RHODA:
"You can't (fully) defeat terrorism without defeating democracy," he said.

MARY:
Every single day of my life I wonder why Bush hates our troops so much.