Uncle Sam, Mother Liberty and Ye Olde sat at the dinner table sipping coffee. They were talking about the Tree of Liberty that they had been keeping in their house for closing in on three hundred years.     “Yeah,” Sam said, “the little bastard broke into our house, keeps roaming around defiling it and he poisoned our damn tree. The cops won’t do anything. The Congress refuses to do anything. I’ve tried to toss him out on his ass, but he’s a slimy, slipper motherfu…”     “Sam,” Mother said, “LANGUAGE!”     “Sorry, Mother.”     “Well, Scribe, he’s suppose to be leaving in a few months… though I’ll believe it when it happens.”      Two children: two boys, played on the floor…       As a semi-joke, Scribe suggested, “When it comes to replenishing the Tree of Liberty, ever think of fertility drugs?”      “Good joke Scribe, but more of a slight snicker,” Sam said. "Maybe we should have tried 'infertility drugs? Now I think maybe all we can do is take the best cutting we can get, hack it down and, start again. What we really need…”     “Is CHANGE!”      Scribe hadn’t noticed it but the far younger looking boy had gone off, come back, wearing a different pair of underwear.     “OK, you changed your clothes, what’s your point?”     “Don’t encourage him, Scribe.”     “My point is… change!!!!”     “Did you notice your underwear has gutting FISA and faith-based written on it? Doesn’t seem to be much of a…”      “CHANGE!”       The younger boy walked away, still saying, “Change.”       Mother Liberty, head in hands, was shaking her head: “He keeps saying that. At least he’s better than…”        Scribe hadn’t noticed, but the other; very much older boy, had also walked out of the room and walked up to the adults saying, “I am the candidate…”       Scribe added…”of change?”       The boy looked at him puzzled.      “No, I’m just the candidate.”       The Scribe noticed this older boy had changed his underwear but not only was it dirty, it reeked: just like the “last pair.”      (Why it’s called a “pair,” when it’s one is one of those eternal; never to be honestly answered questions, like how Junior got “elected.”)      “Think you’d better change again. Phew!”         By now Mother was alomost in tears, “PLEASE, Scribe, for the love of all that's holy, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”       Then an odor like a thousand dead rotting skunks who had both farted and shot their perfumey wad entered the room. Everyone gagged.       Scribe pointed at the very old boy, “I won’t mention the ‘c’ word again. Why don’t you go play?”        Then to Sam, and Mother, Scribe said, “Isn’t he a little old for a ‘boy?’”      “Yeah,” Sam said, John was born 'old.'”       “I should have had my goddamn tubes tied,” Mother moaned.       "And you compain about my language?        To get away from the subject, Scribe asked, “So where’s the girl?”       Mother’s moan got louder.      “She went back to school,” Sam said. “Thank GOD, it was getting a little too shrill around here.”       At a loss for what to do, Scribe decided to distract the kids…     “So what do you kids plan to use to replenish the Tree of Liberty?”      Together they cried, “Bullshit!!!!!!!!!!!!!”      The adults laughed, and in unison they said, “The more idiotic things 'change,' the more idiotic things get.”       Then, hearing the word, as if on cue, the boy who broke in almost eight years ago peeked around the corner, and said, “Someone ask for my special kind of ‘help?’”      “NO,” they all screamed at the same time.

What if they allowed Scribe to repaint all the portraits on, or about to be hung, or might be hung, on the White House walls? How should they be remembered? What should be their legacy? That’s what the current portraits DON’T offer. Here are a few changes Scribe might make, with a few captions… George Washington: While he would look well meaning, it would be somewhat artificial looking as in: always concerned about one’s image… as GW was. Plus he would be shoving all those who went before behind him. John Adams: pair of big scissors: shredding the constitution with a Junior-like smirk. In the background you can see the faint picture of a man screaming from the jail Adams shoved him in, and stayed in til TJ let him out, “But I only said he was a toothless old man!” Grant, Harding: in a teapot shaped bathtub together, filled with sludge and slime. Roosevelt: wearing a superman suit, in a wheelchair, but still flying. Truman: facing off a fearful Satan. Now even the devil know what “Hell” means. Johnson: head, ostrich-like, in a sandfilled toilet labeled Vietnam, saying, “I see nothing. I see nothing.” Nixon: big ear, attempting to listen in with enemy list in hand and Agnew up his butt. Carter: solar panel on head, windmill in hand, Iranian hostages weighing him down; all over him… attempting one of his big grins. Ted Kennedy in his ear, trying to get him to listen. Clinton: hard at work, in the Oval office, bobbing head in lap. This one could use animatronics and moaning… from the bobbing head! Clinton: oblivious. Just another day at work. Junior: long rope with noose, tilted head at the bottom. Bone-us points for predicting possible future residents! O’Bama: just the same old, same old portrait as is on the White House walls. Caption, “Change? Who said anything about change?” McCain: there won’t be any portrait. You might say the effort to make one “bombed.” Or will be bombed, to the tune of Tim Lehrer’s, “We’ll All Go Together When Go.”