Fear and loathing in the Bush years

INT, CAR RENTAL DEALERSHIP - DAY

TITLE: Jan. 7, 2001

Reverse lettering of sign in front window reads: EXECUTIVE BRANCH MOTORS. FOUR YEAR RENTAL.

Bush and Cheney come lurching in through the front doors. They resemble Duke and Gonzo in “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."

A helpful Clerk awaits.

BUSH: How’s it going Cochise? I’m here for the car.

CLERK: What car?

Indicates red, Chevrolet Caprice Convertible.

BUSH: The Presidential "Red Shark," with the 5.7 liter hemi V-8, mouth-breather.

CLERK: You’re the President?

BUSH: Sure. Ask Katherine Harris. Ask the Supreme Court, you bottom-feeder.

CLERK: OK, OK. (hands him keys) Do you solemnly swear to uphold ...

Ignoring clerk, Bush and Cheney hop in.  Bush fires up the engine. He roars through the floor-to-ceiling plate glass window, then backs up inside again.

BUSH: Wait. (indicates large, padlocked metal box labeled "Social Security") I forgot the lockbox.

Grabs it. Jumps in car. Roars out gaping hole in front window again.

Al Gore walks into frame. Watches car speed away.

AL GORE: Hey. That’s my car.

MUSIC: Chords of Big Brother and the Holding Company's Combination of the Two.

EXT, DESERT HIGHWAY - DAY

Red Shark blasts down two lane blacktop. Sound of distant explosion.

BUSH: We were just outside of 9-11 when the mandate kicked in. (VO)

We hear a snorting noise. Bush's head jerks up into frame.

BUSH: Wow that’s some f***ing mandate. Agghhh, bats! Jesus, shoot those bats, will you?

CHENEY: Why?

BUSH: You got the rifle -- I got my hands on the wheel?

CHENEY: OK, OK.

He starts shooting randomly. A Hitchhiker in the back seat wearing a stupid Mickey Mouse t-shirt ducks down in terror.

BUSH: Jesus. Be careful with that thing. You almost went all Pulp Fiction on that … (noticing Hitchhiker cringing in backseat) Where'd we pick up the hitchhiker?

CHENEY: I dunno. Somewhere outside of Barstow.

HITCHHIKER: Where are we going?

BUSH: We’re going to war.

CHENEY: (singing insanely) To war, to war, to war we’re going to go. (blasts shotgun) Yeeehaw!

BUSH: F***ing towelhead can’t pull that shit on us.

CHENEY: Hell no.

BUSH: He thinks he can get away with that he’s got another think coming

HITCHHIKER: War... you mean like Afghanistan?

BUSH: No. We already invaded Afghanistan. I’m talking Iraq.

HITCHHIKER: Uh .. Osama’s not in Iraq.

CHENEY: Check out the f***ing national security expert.

BUSH: We’re not looking for UBL, kid. We’re looking for Saddam. Pay attention. (to Cheney) Hey you. Elmer Fudd. Open up the lock box.

Cheney blasts lock of the lock box, which is next to the kid in the backseat. He screams.

CHENEY: (reaching around, rifling through box) Fuck! There’s nothing but fucking IOUs!

BUSH: Well, spend em and pretend it’s money.

HITCHHIKER: S-spend it on what?

Bush turns his head, talking to the kid, still driving forward at insane speed. The Hitchhiker looks more and more nervous.

BUSH: War’s hell, kid. It also costs money. We gonna get our splendid boys in uniform in this country and find those WMDs. Until they do, we'll kick their ass to the curb. Time to rally the troops!

HITCHHIKER: Look out! (screams)

Bush drives through ANOTHER plate glass window --


-- and into CIRCUS CIRCUS in Las Vegas. Right into the front lobby. Showgirls run screaming.

HITCHHIKER: What’re we doing here?

BUSH: Viva Las Vegas!

HITCHHIKER: I thought you were, uh, gonna rally the troops?

CHENEY: He thinks you were talking about America’s fighting men. And uh women.

BUSH: You insane? We’re not wasting money on them. I’m privatizing this here incursion. We’re outsourcing this f***er!

BUSH strides through the hotel -- and into the main stage in front of a vast conference auditorium hosting various private security corporations and military contractors. There's a massive American flag behind him.

BUSH: How’s it going guys?

AUDIENCE: (singing) Old Backwater, keep on rolling, Missisippi moon won’t you ….

BUSH: Wow. I feel like Patton. Or George C. Scott. I would be honored to lead you wonderful f***ers into battle anytime, anywhere.

This gets a laugh.

BUSH: War is hell. It’s also Heaven, Purgatory, Nirvana and possibly Valhallah.  F*** it, here’s some money. (dumps bucket full of money on AUDIENCE)

They cheer.

BUSH: Find those f***ing WMDs, OK? I don’t care to be left with my dick hanging out on this one. Pick that f***ing dirtbag country up by the ankles and shake it til something falls out.  I want results, not reporters, OK? You see some fucking Al Jazeera cameraman, smoke him! Let’s roll!

Montage -- 

Statue of Saddam falling.

Iraqis looting museums.

Angry Iraqi crowd.

CROWD: Death to America! Death to America!

Hitchhiker watches scene on tiny portable TV. Looks up. A fierce wind is whipping through his hair.

BUSH: See, kid? That’s how you win hearts and minds.

HITCHHIKER: (looks around) Where...where are we?

BUSH: High, kid. Pretty f***ing high.

Bush hits the CD player. It starts playing "Danger Zone."

Cut to shot of jet with the Red Shark attached to its underbelly. The jet releases the Red Shark.

Bush rides, going "whooo-hooo" like Slim Pickens. The poor, suffering Red Shark slides onto the carrier deck and, shooting sparks, skids to a stop just barely in time. Bush leaps out in a flight suit.

BUSH: Well, it looks like we won, huh?

Bush pushes a big red button. A banner unfurls.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

BUSH: That was f***ing easy, wasn’t it?

The men cheer.

CHENEY sidles up to BUSH, looking nervous.

BUSH: (puts hand over microphone) We found those f***ing WMDs yet?

CHENEY: No.

BUSH: Goddamnit, we got to turn up the heat. Set up another meet with the black-ops boys.

INT, RANCH, CRAWFORD TEXAS - NIGHT

Bush and Cheney sit in the Red Shark while the Hitchhiker crouches in the fetal position.

CHENEY: OK. We got the CIA, the Blackwater boys, the A-Team, and the guy from 24.

KIEFER SUTHERLAND: I'm just an actor.

MR. T: Mamma didn't raise no fool.

PETER LORRE: (sharpening knife) What do you want us to do, sir? Unofficially?

BUSH: Think outside the box, people. The Geneva Convention box. Use torture. Use Viola Spolin improve techniques.

Cut to famous scene of hooded detainee with wires attached.

WOMAN: (OS) You are a Christmas tree. What do you experience?

MAN: A fear of electricity.

RED SHARK - DAY

Bush blasts down the road, talking to his cell phone.

BUSH: We found those WMDs yet?

CHENEY: (also talking on his cell phone) No. He hid his stash pretty good.

BUSH: Goddamnit, it’s not working. (tosses cell phone) Mission’s not accomplished. OK. We’ll change the mission. Starting now, we find Saddam.

CHENEY: How? He’s in a fucking hole somewhere.

BUSH: I’ll tell you how!  Operation Iraqi Set Three Trillion Dollars on Fire!

INT - C-4 TRANSPORT PLANE - DAY

Troops are busily shoving huge pallets of flaming money out the door.

They fall, hit the ground and explode

Saddam runs out of his hole.

SADDAM: Ow. That’s really hot. I burned my peepee!

Bush pulls up in the Red Shark and a cloud of dust.

BUSH: Reach for Allah, f***er, I got a present for you. (he pulls out a rope) This one’s for dad!

INT, HOTEL ROOM – THE SANDS IN VEGAS – NIGHT

The Red Shark, somehow, is in the room.

A Boom Box blasts out Jefferson Airplane's "Surrealistic Pillow."

CHENEY: (OS) I’m depressed.

BUSH: Stop whining. I’m depressed too.  Those ungrateful fuckers. We kill their f***ing dictator. We restore civil order and democracy. What’s the thanks we get?

CHENEY: They unrestore civil order and democracy.

BUSH: Yeah. If we win, they win. If they lose, we lose. It’s a f***ing paradox. Bertrand Russel would’ve ripped the eyes out of his sockets just thinking about it.

CHENEY: Kill me.

SOUND: Cheney splashes water in bathtub. (OS)

BUSH: What?

CHENEY: When it gets to White Rabbit, throw the CD player in the tub. The part where the rabbit screams.

BUSH: Sure, you crazy fucker.

He throws a bust of Lincoln in the tub.

CHENEY: (OS) Agghhhhhh! Agghhhhhh!

BUSH: (to Hitchhiker) An excitable individual. Mutant DNA. Some mongrel combination of Welsh, Scottish and something else.

The Hitchhiker huddles, shaking in the corner.

HITCHHIKER: Please let me go home.

BUSH: This is home., f***er. Ever seen “Audition? You better keep your mouth shut.

Cheney leaps out of the bathroom holding a large Bowie knife.

CHENEY: Road trip!

EXT, NEW ORLEANS - DAY

Devastation. It's like a scene from a depressing post-apocalyptic near future SF movie.

Red Shark blasts down the streets of the ruined city, past closed up businesses and bordered up homes.


Bush speaks into his tape recorder.

BUSH: Mission accomplished. There were many missions. We created the greatest wave of prosperity in American history.

HITCHHIKER: No you didn’t.

Cheney head butts him with a rifle.

BUSH: From a certain perspective, the Neo-Conservative movement was like a wave or Jack Lord’s hair. You can see exactly where it stopped. This is something new. A new wave. No maps for this territory. No direction home. We cut all the Wall Street regulations and lowered taxes. We ...

EXT, DESERT - DAY

The now-battered Red Shark speeds along insanely. Bush is still talking.

BUSH: …history will judge. Fuck history. I’ll be dead. Far as I’m concerned, I’m the one to judge history and history’s guilty! (loud THUMP) Hell was that?

CHENEY: You just ran over Noam Chomsky.

He stops the car, backs up, runs over him again, then goes forward, running over him yet again.

BUSH: I saw that in The Sopranos. Always wanted to do that. Are we there yet?

CHENEY: Yeah.

Red Shark crashes through windows of the car rental dealership. The car is now a smoking wreck. Bush and Cheney get out. The Hitchhiker’s still in the back, shivering with post-traumatic shock.

Obama is standing there.
 

BUSH tosses the keys to Obama.

BUSH: Here. It’s all yours.

CHENEY: Christ. He looks like a f***ing lawn jockey.

Bush and Cheney laugh and run out.

Obama stands there.

The car falls to pieces like the Bluesmobile.