Loser of Rock, Scissors, Paper Tournament Will Be Dissenter
Worried that public might perceive President Bush as being isolated because he has packed his new cabinet with die-hard loyalists, the White House plans to name one cabinet member as the “designated dissenter.” The new program will begin after the January inauguration.
A new designated dissenter will be chosen each month during a rock, scissors, paper tournament among cabinet members. The tournament loser will become that month’s designated dissenter.
The dissenter’s job will be to challenge the president at every opportunity during cabinet meetings and balance out the opinions of all the other cabinet members, whose job it is to quickly agree with everything the president says and readily endorse his plans.
“The president approaches every decision by listening to a diversity of voices on his team, something he learned at the Harvard Business School,” said a White House spokesperson who asked not to be identified. “He has chosen some of the smartest people in the country as cabinet members. They are among the best and the brightest because they think like he does on most every issue and almost certainly will come to the same decision on a problem that the president would. The designated dissenter’s job will be to keep things in perspective.”
The rock, scissors, paper tournament will be held in the Cabinet Room at the White House at the beginning of each month. Karl Rove, President Bush’s chief political operative, will be the tournament referee. Rove became famous during the Bush years in Texas as a champion rock, scissors, paper player, particularly for his daring use of the rock hand gesture to crush an opponent’s scissors gesture.
Rove also gained some notoriety for inventing the controversial “bird” gesture that some people use in an expanded version of the fast-paced game. The gesture involves “throwing” the hand in such a way that the middle finger is extended and all the other fingers are folded.
Rock, scissors, paper purists look down on the bird gesture as too gauche. It has been banned from tournaments sanctioned by the National Association of Rock, Scissors, Paper Players.
A White House spokesperson declined to say whether the bird gesture would be permitted at the monthly cabinet tournament to chose the designated dissenter.
A spot check of rock, scissors, paper trainers in the Washington, D.C. area indicated that interest in the game had spiked up in recent days. All the trainers said they couldn’t comment about the identity of new students who had suddenly decided to take up the game.
However, at James Polk Elementary School in Bethesda, Maryland outside Washington, Jessica Lehighton, a sixth-grader who is Montgomery County rock, scissors, paper champion, confirmed that she had been hired to coach someone who she said is “very important.” She declined to identify her new student during an interview on a sidewalk outside the school as she waited for her mother to pick her up.
But as Jessica climbed into the car and explained to her mother about the person she was talking to, Mrs. Lehighton leaned across the front seat and said, “Think VIP, very big VIP.” She declined to say how much Jessica was charging for lessons.
“These are likely to be the highest stakes that a rock, scissors, paper tournament will ever have,” said Wesley Floyd, editor of the weekly newspaper RSP Gazette that covers the sport. “I don’t know much about politics, but if you’re a member of the Bush Cabinet this is one tournament you don’t want to lose.”
Floyd said he had begun searching for a Washington-based reporter who could find out details of the cabinet tournaments and file dispatches to his newspaper.
“This could really give the sport the recognition it deserves,” Floyd said, “particularly if a cabinet member gets fired for speaking out about how they really feel on something while they are the monthly dissenter.”