Dream Sequence

I woke myslef up from a dream on Sunday with a silent scream. I was in a heightened state of emotion, and yelling out something like "The law does not allow it, sir. The F-ing CONSTITUTION does not allow it."

The preceding sequence of events in the dream was long and involved, but it boiled down to me being in the inner circle of the Bush cabinet. I had used to have a commanding officer who sent me in on an errand, and someone in the White House took a liking to me and got me transferred to some staff job there when that officer was acccused of plotting against the president. The routine became that, at lunch hour, I would sit around a conference table and joke with the big brass like a yong Michael J Fox, hiding my nervousness with an extroverted exuberance that would be really hard to pull off in real life. But it's a dream, so there.

One day, this 50s-looking guy in shirtsleeves, narrow tie, and with a breifcase comes in and wants to disucss soem evidence of something incriminating in my past. It's a big deal for my future career and existence, but I have no idea what he is talking about. I know have nothing on my conscience. It's lunch hour, so I tell people to join us in the conference room. The sooner everything became public the better for my image.

SO... the guy talks and talks and talks and all the time I'm making snide comments to Dick and Rummy, and at one point even George walks in and sits down to enjoy the show. In the end, it boils down to a copy of a 1-page wall poster with a sign-up column. Sure enough, I had penciled my name on that poster indicating interest in some student activity way back when. So then, the Darren-looking guy takes out a copy with a lot of green highlighting on it, and I ask "So what on the poster did your legal team highlight as evidence of sedition, or whatever it is you are trying to pin on me?"

He gives me a color copy and I see that most of the poster is highlighted green. It's funny, but scary - if George and Dick buy the charges, I'm out of there. Scary. But the ditto-heads had highlighted almost everything, which means that nothing actually stood out. Funny. So I say:

"It is becoming clear that the ineptitude of your secretarial team is going to force me to do some hard work here figuring out what in this poster is actually worth reading. But, you know what, I am not going to make the effort. Because you do not have a case. Even if someone with a brain took two precious minutes to scan the poster and find out what it is on it that you think is unacceptable, your case would be no stronger than it is now, with its confusing jumble of 'maybe it's here, baybe it's there' annotation."

The tone of the room becomes tense - have I lost my mind or do I know something they do not?

"The fact is, you are accusing me of something even you cannot name based on my free exercise of the right to associate with whomever I please. Whatever the particulars of the case, anything built on that is inadmissible. The law will not allow it. The F___ing CONSTITUTION will not allow it."

And I never got to find out how George, Dick and Rummy reacted to my outburst, becasue the strength of the emotion that I put into that pronouncement woke me up. Pity.