This Monty Python skit never gets old. I suppose I could offer some sort of commentary about how pathetic Bush is in his delusions of grandeur or, conversely, how wonderfully doctrinaire we, the people, can be in our outrage. But why bother? The Pythons say it much better than that. I provide the transcript for your amusement on this otherwise ordinary Sunday morning in the age of the Unitary Executive!
King: Old woman!
Dennis: Man!
King: Man, sorry. What knight lives in that castle over there?
Dennis: I’m 37.
King: What?
Dennis: I’m 37. I’m not old!
King: Well, I can’t just call you ‘man.’
Dennis: You could say ‘Dennis!’
King: I didn’t know you were called Dennis.
Dennis: You didn’t bother to find out, did you?!
King: I did say sorry about the ‘old woman’ but from behind you looked...
Dennis: What I object to is your automatically treating me like an inferior!
King: Well, I am king.
Dennis: Oh, king, ay! Very nice. And how’d you get that then? By exploitin’ the worker; by hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society! If there’s ever going to be any progress...
Dennis’s wife (walking up onto the scene from a ditch): Dennis! There’s some lovely filth down ‘ere! (She sees the stranger with Dennis.) Oh, how do you do?
King: How do you do, good lady? I am Arthur, King of the Britons! Whose castle is that?
Wife: King of the who?
King: The Britons!
Wife: Who’re the Britons!?
King: Well, we all are! We are all Britons, and I am your king.
Wife: Didn’t know we had a king! I thought we were an autonomous collective.
Dennis (to his wife): You’re foolin’ yourself! We’re livin’ in a dictatorship. A self-perpetuating autocracy in which the workin’ class...
Wife: Oh, there you go bringin’ class into it again!
Dennis: Well that’s what it’s all about! If only people would...
King: Please! Please, good people. I am in haste. Who lives in that castle?
Wife: No one lives there.
King: Then who is your lord?
Wife: We don’t have a lord.
King: What!!
Dennis: I told you. We’re an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week.
King: Yes...
Dennis: ...but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting by a simple majority, in the case of purely internal affairs, or by a two-thirds majority in the case of...
King: Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!
Wife: Order, ay! Who does he think he is?!
King: I am your King!
Wife: Well, I didn’t vote for you.
King: You don’t vote for kings!
Wife: Well, how’d you become king then?
King: The Lady of The Lake, her arm clad in purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water, signifying by divine providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. That is why I am your king!
Dennis: Listen, strange women lying in ponds distributin’ swords is no basis for executive power. Power arises from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony!
King: Quiet!
Dennis: You can’t expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you! If I went ‘round saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bink lobbed a scimitar at me, they’d put me away!
King (moving menacingly toward Dennis): Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!
Dennis: Ah! Now we see the violence inherent in the system!
King: Shut up or I shall kill you!
Dennis: Help, help, I’m being oppressed! Come see the violence inherent in the system!