Ever since Obama began sporting this sort of sign it’s put me in mind of “The Mikado:”
In fact, in connection with any sort of governmental and legal ridiculousness, you can hardly go wrong if you think of “The Mikado.” Although Gilbert and Sullivan wrote their satiric masterpiece in 1885, and it was set in a very fanciful Japan, it has never ceased to be relevant to the ways of elected officials in a host of countries, including ours.
For those of you who don’t know the original, here are Gilbert’s lyrics; skip the first two verses, which are a Japanese processional. The song marks the grand entrance of the Mikado, the Emperor of Japan. He’s a pretentious figure, but he’s upstaged—and quite literally shoved aside—by Katisha, his self-styled Daughter-in-law-Elect.
Here is the new version:
BUSH:
From every kind of gent
Gross ridicule I expect;
I’m the outgoing President…
OBAMA:
And I’m the President-elect!
He was the top gun
But now I’m The One,
I’m the President-elect!
BUSH:
My morals have been declared
Particularly incorrect;
OBAMA:
But they’re nothing at all, compared
With those of the President-elect!
Bow, bow,
To the President-elect!
CHORUS:
Bow, bow
To the President-elect.
BUSH:
In a fatherly kind of way
I help each tribe and sect,
In Iraq and Africa they…
OBAMA:
Prefer the President elect!
So eloquence-prone,
Though the rest is unknown,
That’s the President-elect!
BUSH:
My nature is strength and fight
But my freedom from all defect…
OBAMA:
Is insignificant quite,
Compared with the President-elect!
Bow, bow,
To the President-elect!
CHORUS:
Bow, bow,
To the President-elect.
[NOTE: I tried to find a great version of the original on You Tube. But this was the best I could do; it’s nowhere near as good as it should be. But I include it for the curious. The song I am parodying begins around minute 1:00 and ends around minute 2:35.
Previously a lifelong Democrat, born in New York and living in New England, surrounded by liberals on all sides, I've found myself slowly but surely 
December 19th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Kudos! Clever, funny, and apt.
December 19th, 2008 at 1:57 pm
I assume that you mean “Bush” everywhere you wrote “Mikado”?
December 19th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Oops! Will fix. I thought I’d changed all the “Mikados.”
December 19th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
The President ELECT seems to be quite the fan of logos and banners. I won’t go down the list of unsavory characters in the past that have loved special symbols and podium accessories, but it does point to either an enlarged ego or insecurity or both.
December 19th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
I have to vote for “or both.”
December 19th, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Those pictures of Obama with his various seals always look photoshopped to me, like jokes from the Onion.
Am I being unfair to Obama? Has any other President-Elect done this?
December 19th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
Those lyrics yours? Fantastic! You could launch a second career … if you didn’t live in a country where even Gilbert and Sullivan are too high-brow for TV.
December 19th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Neo - from a songwriter - good job. If you put your mind to it I think you could give Weird Al a run for his money in the song parody business.
And to Huxley - no other president elect has done anything like this. There is not any such official title or office as “President elect”.
The arrogance of this whole show amazes me.
December 19th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Two words…Pure…Genius
December 19th, 2008 at 8:11 pm
I do hope there is a heaven with saved souls, who finally having recognized ‘truth,’ are now looking down and listening. One would be an old lunch friend, dead at 84 in the mid-nineties, who could and did declaim, indeed sing, if a bit reedy, the exactly appropriate Gilbert & Sullivan song for the political/intellectual argument of the moment.
He was the only self-identified Republican in my local, very progressive ‘church’ group that I had been indoctrinated into as a child; I was long, long past childhood in the nineties, and about to become an apostate *********/Democrat, gratis Bill’s child-lawyer definition of sex, the final, inappropriate straw. The sex was stupid; his crapping out on ROTC much earlier, finally defined him and the progressive crew for me.
This old friend and G&S fan was a Dartmouth graduate, who never missed a chance to so note (i.e., a real Ivy-League Easterner), and had been an Army communications Sgt. aboard the Navy cruiser that carried FDR to Yalta; that story we heard several times; but he hardly remembered Korea had happened by the mid-nineties.
He so humorously used G&S to note the political inanities of those days, that I’m sure he’s smiling down at you, neo.
December 19th, 2008 at 11:22 pm
You are absolutely brilliant here, Neo.
December 20th, 2008 at 6:08 am
I love this guy! Now it’s The Office of the President Elect? Fantastic!Do you suppose he hangs that sign on the bathroom door while he’s in there? If he uses condoms do you suppose there are little titles printed on them? Does Michelle, do you imagine, have to dress up like the Statue of Liberty?
December 20th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Good job, neo. It’s just a shame that you had to settle for the embedded version. Have you by chance seen the movie “Topsy Turvy,” which is (probably loosely) based on G&S’s inspiration for and staging of The Mikado?
December 20th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
OlderandWheezier: I did see the movie “Topsy Turvy, ” and I have to register a dissenting opinion. I did not like it. I tend to prefer fairly freeform versions of the Mikado—I like them to take a lot of liberties. The version I posted takes too many liberties, though—it is just strange. But I found “Topsy Turvy” to be too staid. I find that local productions are often the best—the actors usually have good voices, but they know how to have fun.
December 20th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
We have some controversy going on between black, gay marriage, and Obama supporters, Neo.
Link
Obama will have his work cut out for him herding these cats around. But he will do so better than Bush did, at least.
December 20th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
This puts me in mind of another Gilbert and Sullivan work, “HMS Pinafore.”
Obama’s ascension to high posityion reminds me of the tale of how the Ruler of the Queen’s Navy attained his lofty position.
See it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpJ_IAUs8nI
December 20th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
Gilbert was a solicitor, and had an appreciation of human weakness based on a lawyer’s view of the seamier side of Victorian society. There is another song in The Mikado that I have always liked, for its insight into human nature. The song is a duet between the Mikado and Katisha. It goes something like this (I’m going by imperfect memory here).
See how fortune the Fates alot
For A is happy, but B is not.
Yet B is deserving, I dare say,
of far more happiness than A.
Is B derserving? I should say
he’s worth a great deal more than A.
But A is happy, oh so happy,
laughing, haha, chaffing, haha, quaffing haha haha ha.
Ever joyous ever gay,
happy undeserving A.
If I were Fortune, which I’m not,
B would enjoy A’s happy lot.
A should perish miserably,
always assuming that I am B.
Then B would be happy, oh so happy.
Laughing, haha, chaffing, haha, quaffing haha haha ha.
But condemned to die is he,
wretched meritorious B.
December 21st, 2008 at 1:08 am
I love it, but (1) “The Mikado” as a “pretentious” figure? When you’re an absolute ruler, why do you have to pretend? (2) Remember, “Topsy Turvy” is about the *creation* of “The Mikado,” which limits the liberties Mike Leigh could have taken; and (3) Michael Lonie, I believe Gilbert was a failed barrister, not a failed solicitor _ in his time, and for a long time afterward, barristers were considered gentlemen, solicitors were not. (Sir Joseph Porter made his career as a solicitor.)