Make Believe

When I was a boy, I was a huge Star Trek fan.  Now that I'm a middle-aged man....I'm still a huge Star Trek fan.  But now I can afford real starships and real phaser rifles and a real holodeck and a real clone of Counselor Troi (thanks to George W. Bush's tax cuts, natch).

But this post isn't about now, it's about then.  Actually, it isn't about my Trekkerdom at all - that's an analogy for what the post is about.  But you probably knew that.

One of my older cousins (they were ALL older, actually) knew I was a huge Trek mark and got me a model of the U.S.S. Enterprise for my birthday.  Not the Constellation-class NCC-1701-A; not the Excelsior-class NCC-1701-B; not the Ambassador-class NCC-1701-C; not the Galaxy-class NCC-1701-D; not the Sovereign-class NCC-1701-E; not even Jonathan Archer's original NX-01.  I mean the original, the classic, the Constitution-class NCC-1701.  For a five-year old Trek nut the year after 2001: A Space Odyssey and the year Neil Armstrong took that giant leap for mankind, that was the equivalent of sex.

I carried that model around with me everywhere.  And I do mean EVERYwhere, if you know what I mean.  It was my answer to Linus' blanket.  I'd have gotten it welded onto my body if I could have.

There was only one other thing I wanted as much as I loved that Enterprise model:  a model of a Klingon K'tinga-class battlecruiser to go with it so I could stage the epic space battles that NBC didn't have the budget or the special effects technology to depict forty years ago.  The problem was, this was in the days before Klingons were cool, even before Gene Roddenberry had the resources to create the forehead crest prosthetics that weren't seen until Star Trek: The Motion Picture ten years later.  There were no Klingon starship models to be had.

I was heartbroken.  But I also had a robust imagination.  So I did what any other lower middle-class kid would have done in those circumstances: I used a fly swatter and pretended it was a K'tinga-class heavy instead.

FWIW, my IKS GhIlab Ghew outlasted Captain Kirk's ship by years, won many battles, and brought great honor and glory to the Klingon Empire.  But it was still, underneath all that Kahlessness, a fly swatter.

And Barack Obama came up with his equivalent:

What the hell?  What is this?  He's so impatient to be president that he makes up his own personal seal?  What is he, twelve?  Sheesh, when I was fifteen and refused my learners' permit because I was too nearsighted and stupidly went joyriding in my dad's 1968 Ford Galaxy without my too-weak glasses and got away with everything except the big scratch I put in the side chrome when I tried to back it into the driveway and cut the corner where my mother's painted rock was, my mother told me that was the stupidest thing I'd ever done.  My father wanted to run me through with his d'k tahg, but Mom always kept the family bat'leth handy for just such emergencies.  This is one of BO's PR equivalents.  One of many.

I mean, look at it.  It's the size of a monster truck hubcap.  Make a saucer out of it and he could take his kids sledding, or pirate DirecTV.  And what's with the Dukakis pose at that podium - is he standing in a hole?

And did this little exercise in premature ego gratification run afoul of the law?  The Weekly Standard considers the possibility:

18 USC Sec. 713 ...
(a) Whoever knowingly displays any printed or other likeness of the great seal of the United States, or of the seals of the President or the Vice President of the United States, or the seal of the United States Senate, or the seal of the United States House of Representatives, or the seal of the United States Congress, or any facsimile thereof, in, or in connection with, any advertisement, poster, circular, book, pamphlet, or other publication, public meeting, play, motion picture, telecast, or other production, or on any building, monument, or stationery, for the purpose of conveying, or in a manner reasonably calculated to convey, a false impression of sponsorship or approval by the Government of the United States or by any department, agency, or instrumentality thereof, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.

(b) Whoever, except as authorized under regulations promulgated by the President and published in the Federal Register, knowingly manufactures, reproduces, sells, or purchases for resale, either separately or appended to any article manufactured or sold, any likeness of the seals of the President or Vice President, or any substantial part thereof, except for manufacture or sale of the article for the official use of the Government of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.

Was it the long arm of justice or the avalanche of ridicule (His Latin version of "From many, one": "Truly, we are able" - aka "Yes we can!") that would get him first?  We'll never know, because Team Hussein has already pulled it:

Succumbing to an avalanche of criticism, Senator Barack Obama's campaign has apparently decided to back away from its trial balloon of a new presidential seal.

Newsmax’s lead story Monday morning reported on Obama’s new version of the presidential seal, but a campaign spokesman now says it won’t be used again.

“That was a one-time thing for a one-time event,” Robert Gibbs asserted to CNN about the rather intricately designed seal that made its debut last Friday.

Yeah; kind of like a quadrapelegic going streaking, or meeting your girlfriend's parents and asking her mother if she's up for a threesome.  And the best part of all?  It's another Obama flip-flop!  Man, he doesn't even stand by his own mountainous conceit, even if it does keep humping his leg.

I think I'll design my own seal.  It'll look like a dinner plate with a pudgy, dozing eagle holding a TV remote in one foot and a teriyaki New York steak in the other, and the paunch covered by a shield featuring this handsome fellow....

....and the tlhIngan Hol motto, "DaHjaj ghaH QaQ jaj Daq Sop" ("Today is a good day to eat!").

It'll blow away Possumus Playa's pathetic plate....