It is 3 a.m in the White House , and the phone rings:
McCain: Hello.
Voice: Hello, John.
McCain: Who is this?
Voice : Hello, John, it’s Phung Van Chung.
McCain: Phung? Not the Phung?
Voice: The Phung, John. Congratulations on becoming President of the United States, John, the greatest country ever in history of the world. Our plan has reached fruition at last! Listen carefully. You are about to receive your orders.
McCain: You can’t do this to me Phung, not after thirty six years.
Voice: John, remember Hoa Loa Prison, Hanoi? You remember, John? You in pain, crying out, “Stop! Stop! For God’s sake, stop.” Water-boarding goodtime, yes John? Did fine job! “What do you want to know?” you ask. I say “I turn off water, we do deal".
McCain: I told you all I knew at the time, Phung. Now get lost!
Voice: No angry, John. We good friends, yes?
McCain: You’re bloody joking. August 1968. I gave you a great piece of anti-American propaganda and you used it all over the world at the time. I did my bit.
Voice: Hah! Yes, indeed. Velly good propaganda. Ho Ch Minh pleased, Russians pleased. But Pentagon not so pleased today if we tell them exactly how much secret information new President gave North Vietnam in 1968.
McCain: Who cares after all these years!
Voice: We know what you told great American people. “Five years and I withstood the fiendish Communist torture and resumed my service to my country.” They think you national hero. John. Oh, they'll care, John, they'll care!
McCain: You can’t prove it, damn you!
Voice: Tomorrow , John, you will receive in mail old-fashioned tape in brown envelope. Be by yourself, find tape recorder, load and listen. Velly interesting indeed!
McCain: You recorded me?
Voice: John, we are not CIA. We are plofessionals. Everything on tape, awaiting great day of reckoning. You think Vietnam War over, John? You think we have forgiven, forgotten, eh? You think we have bought into the great globalized, capitalist, culture of twenty-first century? Yes, John, but we do not forget history. Only Americans forget history. This is moment we have waited for and planned for. I am only sorry great leader, Ho, is no longer alive to savor it!
McCain: We don’t talk to banned organizations and to people who disagree with us.
Voice: Then, John, you have refused to acknowledge the heroism of Mai Van On, the Vietnamese peasant who swam out during the bombing raid and rescued you from drowning. Not nice , John, not nice at all. Media and nation might wonder if there might be other, shall we say, more damaging allegations. For instance, that maybe you exaggerated just a teeny-weeny bit your PoW ordeal in Hoa Lao prison? We have witnesses. Oh, yes, we have witnesses.
McCain: You can’t blackmail me. The media won’t buy it. I sit in the back of the Straight Talk Express and joke with them, swap anecdotes, make fun of Hillary and so on. They love me. By the way, their bosses are all Republicans.
Voice: I see. Velly well. We hoped you would cooperate voluntarily, with a bit of gentle persuasion, John, but seems we’ll have to activate your implant. Yes?
(Silence)
McCain: Very well. You win. What do you want?
Voice: Socialized medicine.
McCain: Socialized medicine? Why? You have to be joking!
Voice: Not at all, John. We want America to become socialized country. Socialized countries make fewer wars on other countries than freedom-loving democracies with Constitutions guaranteeing live, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
McCain: But we stand for private enterprise, freedom and small government.
Voice: Old-fashioned remark, John. Actually, under Bush it began to stand for monopolies. The media is a monopoly, pharmaceuticals are a monopoly, defense is a monopoly, telecoms are a monopoly. It also stands for torture, but that’s another thing. So the government takes over health. What’s the difference? More efficient and the prices are lower.
McCain: I wouldn’t get away with it. The right wing already hates me because I tried to reduce the power of the lobbyists. Having me try to help the poor would drive them crazy.
Voice: You are a Republican. Tell the generals liberty is under threat.
McCain: (ignoring him). Socialized medicine is something Hillary Clinton does. Real men don’t get ill anyway. They just go out and hunt raccoons.
Voice: O.K , Mr. President, you think of something or copies of 1968 de-briefing (shall we call it?) will be delivered to the media tomorrow. And remember, in the last resort there is that implant. The ploblem with implants is that they make the subject behave and look like a puppet. The great American people have had enough of being ruled by a puppet.
McCain: I suppose I could call it “Freedom from Insurance”. Or perhaps we could catch the CEOs of the pharmaceutical companies planning a terrorist attack on the White House with weapons of mass destruction, dressed in djallabas and calling themselves Hussein, Mohammed or something?
Voice: You’re the leader of the “free world". You work it out.
And thus it was that America got a national health service, financed by the Chinese and Japanese governments, the only people who could afford to put up the money.