Defeating the Islamo-Borg

Pasadena (AP)

In an attempt to sell the war in Iraq and the ‘war on terror’ to the crucial ‘lonely 20-something male’ demographic, White House Press Secretary Tony Snow announced today at a Star Trek Convention in Southern California that “President Bush won’t rest until we crush the galactic ‘Islamo-Borg’ threat to our way of life.’”

“We can’t coddle those who don’t understand the stakes. The universe is full of dark matter and original sin. We’ve got to stop the relentless Islamo-Borg before they stick us in the neck with that thingy and turn us all into half man, half bin Laden” said Snow to the raucous cheers of the gathered Trekies.

Snow later introduced Patrick Stewart, the actor who played Captain Jean Luc Picard on Star Trek: Next Generation and Jerry Ryan, who portrayed ex-Borg crewmember “Seven of Nine” on Star Trek: Voyager.

“When the Borg turned me into the evil Locutus in Episode 13 of Season Three I felt the full horror of losing my personal identity to the group mind and serving only the relentless assimilation of other nations and cultures to the Borg collective,” intoned Stewart in his characteristically weighty baritone and vaguely unidentifiable accent. “If you don’t vote Republican this fall, this is the fate that may await you.”

Ryan wowed the crowd when she showed up in her original skin tight silver Voyager cat suit with a warning. “Take it from the ex-Tertiary Adjunct of Unimatrix Zero-One, we want to fight the Islamo-Borg in Iraq. If they make it here to our shores, resistance is futile.”

The excited crowd continuously interrupted the three speakers with rhythmic chants of “Two more years, two more years, two more years!”

After Snow’s presentation, Ned Wentworth, a pimply 19 year old from Riverside, California expressed his appreciation for Snow’s comments and his own commitment to the cause. The reed thin Wentworth, dressed as a red-shirted-anonymous-crewmen-killed-at-the-beginning-of-the-show-by-a-silicon-creature-that-looked-like-a-slice-of-pizza in Episode 8 of the original Star Trek, said, “Schyea, I’m ready! Phasers on stun!”

Snow's appearance was a part of an orchestrated attempt on the part of the White House to use potent new metaphors and analogies to help them sell the war on Iraq and the war on terror to an increasingly skeptical public.

A high ranking executive working with top advertising firm Arnold and Smutz spoke on condition of anonymity about the Republican efforts. Karl Rove and the Republican National Committee hired the ad company a year ago to assist them in a war on terror ‘re-branding effort.’

“Before we got into the mix they were using silly and very specific historical analogies like Nazi Germany and WW2 Japan and the Soviet Union. But you can't fool all of the people all of the time, so they had to move in a new direction.”

"We've helped them go with a two pronged strategy. First, label anything in the Islamic world that seems even slightly threatening as “Islamo-fascism” and treat it like a unified, powerful conspiracy. That way you get a big bang from the vague but emotionally loaded term fascism, you milk people’s conspiracy fears, and you don’t have to face the kind of criticism you get when you use specific and obviously irrelevant historical analogies. And if you can portray it as an endless threat and an endless war, man, that’s a conservative’s dream.”

“Then you go with re-branding for very specific niche markets. I came up with the Islamo-Borg idea myself. We’re looking to introduce an Islamo-Yankees campaign for baseball fans soon too. As we all know, everybody outside of New York hates the Yankees.”

“And if all else fails and we’re down at crunch time come early November, we’re going with a nationwide “Islamo-Swish” campaign. You know, a vote for a Republican is a vote against gay Islamic terrorists. Talk about jihad! We’ll have the base in the voting booths and the Dems running for cover, baby!”