The Environment: You have my word that I will do everything in my power to keep the environment outside, where it belongs. With me in charge of the national thermostat, you can forget all about that global warming nonsense. It will be a comfortable 72 degrees, year ‘round (special exemptions made for ski resorts and wet t-shirt competitions). Rain once a week during the growing season, and a fluffy blanket of snow for the holidays. Golf ball-sized hail and the occasional tornado to give TV weathermen something to talk about, random frost to keep the farmers on their toes, and sleet just whenever I take a notion.

The Economy: I have always subscribed to economic principles proffered by such luminaries as economists Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams, and Nobel laureates Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek. Laissez faire capitalism with minimal government intrusion produces a free-market economy that is libertarian, self-scaling and self-adjusting. Barring that, of course, we could always just sell Krispy Kreme donuts in front of every supermarket in America on Saturday mornings, which seems to work quite well as an engine of economic progress for a variety of special interest groups (including cheerleaders, in whom I am specially interested).

National defense: I am in favor of Buddy Ryan’s still-ingenious 4-6 defense which led the Chicago Bears to the Super Bowl in ’85. By taking away our enemy’s running and short-yardage passing games, we can force them into a low-percentage long pass strategy that will expose them to our superior speed and skills in the secondary. At which point we can bomb them till their country looks like Charles Bronson’s face.

Homeland security: First, as a native Virginian, I believe that the pointy end of the Commonwealth should face the other way, to discourage naval attacks. And instead of all these lengthy delays at airports while we scrutinize the molecular structure of everyone who wants to get on an airplane, we should simply require every prospective passenger to explain the infield fly rule. Insidious outsiders will be tripped up by the intricacies of the national pastime, and anyone who doesn’t like baseball doesn’t belong on the damned plane anyway. Thus, we can simultaneously keep America’s passenger rail system afloat by filling Amtrak trains with nefarious foreign elements and soccer moms, who frankly deserve each other. Every problem contains its own solution.

Education: I would lower tuition for all public colleges to $4.95 plus one proof of purchase from any sized box of Kellogg’s Product 19 per semester. How would I pay for that, you ask? By taxing the absolute hell out of such current college mainstays as Abercrombie and Fitch, Grand Theft Auto videogames, Spongebob Squarepants, and Red Bull energy drink. In my administration, you’ll either be part of the problem or part of the solution.

Now for the most important question: What will the Genius Administration do for jazz? On that matter, I have a five-pronged plan (it was actually three-pronged when it started, but I had extra prongs that were getting close to their expiration date and it seemed a shame to let them go to waste).

1. Higher profile for jazz artists. How does Secretary of State Ornette Coleman sound? Live with Regis and Keely Smith. Thelonious Monk guest stars on Six Feet Under as a dead jazz musician. Bikini-clad Diane Krall and diaphanously-wrapped Karrin Allyson highlight Maxim’s “Hot Jazz” issue (and for the ladies, beefcake shots of Keith Jarrett in Cosmo ).

2. More jazz on radio and TV. Did you know that Canada requires that broadcasts contain 60% Canadian content? And that’s just one of the reasons no one takes them seriously. At least our talentless pop chanteuses are slutty enough to be entertaining so long as you turn the sound down when they’re “singing.” Does anyone want to see Celine Dion’s horrifying skeletal remains in hip-huggers and a tube top? Sweet Lord no! Which has nothing at all to do with jazz, but isn’t it enough to know that you have a President who cares enough about America to diligently keep emaciated chest-thumping Canadians off our airwaves?

Anyway, more jazz on radio and TV. ‘Nuff said.

3. Increased jazz education in our public schools. If we’re going to use our public schools as testing grounds for every crackpot social engineering scheme to come down the pike, why not get some mileage out of the deal for something really important? Give those kids a Coltrane CD with their condoms, so that they won’t have to face the rest of their lives with the stigma of having lost their virginity to some forgettable top-forty nonsense.

But seriously.

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