The Table

The Editors have had enough about talking about what options are On The Table.

Shut the fuck up about “the table”. Shut the fuck up about what is on “the table”, and especially shut the fuck up about what isn’t on “the table” which, seeing as there is no table for something obviously retarded not to be on, is like two or three completely independent kinds of stupid. When one takes nukes off “the table”, where do they go? Are they stored in “boxes” in “the basement”, far away from “the table”, or are just left on “the mantle” in “the gracious drawing room”, to be easily retrieved for instant re-tabling should one, in a fit of high spirits, snap one’s “fingers” for “Marie, the French maid (and nothing else!)” to fetch them? These are the kinds of metaphorical/hypothetical domestic questions that really give me a fucking migraine. What I would like to hear is a candidate’s basic principles of statecraft, so as to understand how a potential President would make decisions. If one seeks particular examples, why not turn to history, which has spent thousands of years coming up with concrete examples of every far-out situation you could hope for (with the regrettable exception of situations where one country wakes up one day and starts nuking fools)? Let’s confine ourselves to these as much as possible, and not worry so much about inventorying imaginary “tables”.