A mad T party at the White House (with apologies to Lewis Carroll)

There was a table set out under a tree in front of the White House, and the March Hare and the Mad Hatter were having Kool-Aid at it. A Dormouse was sitting between them, fast asleep, wearing shoes two sizes too large that the Hatter, not being the Cobbler, had gifted him. The other two were using the Dormouse - whom the Hatter disparagingly called 'Little Dormo' from time to time - as a cushion, resting their elbows on him, and talking over his head.

'Very uncomfortable for the Dormouse,' thought Alice from CNN. 'Only as he's asleep, I suppose he doesn't mind.'

The table was a large one, enough to host every contradiction under the sun. But the three were all crowded together at one corner of it: 'No room! No room! And we know what CNN's ratings are. Pathetic. Crash and burn. Fake news channel!' they cried when they saw Alice coming.


'There's plenty of room!' said Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large armchair at one end of the table mysteriously marked 'Karoline Leavitt Empty'.

'Have some Iranian chai,' the March Hare said in an encouraging tone, the tattoo on his arm with the line from Matthew 10:34 proclaiming: 'I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.'

Alice looked around the table, but there was nothing on it but Kool-Aid. 'I don't see any chai,' she remarked.

'There isn't any,' said the March Hare.

'Then it wasn't very civil of you to offer it,' said Alice angrily.

'It wasn't very civil of you to sit down after the White House has banned CNN access here,' said the March Hare.

'I didn't know it was your table,' said Alice. 'It's laid for a great many more than three.'

'Your ratings need cutting,' said the Hatter. He had been looking at Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was his first speech.

'You should learn not to make personal remarks,' Alice said with Chelsea Clintonesque severity. 'It's very rude.'

The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this, but all he said was, 'Why is a THAAD missile defence system like a writing desk?'

'Come, we shall have some fun now!' thought Alice, flipping open her reporter's notebook. 'I'm glad they've begun asking riddles--I believe I can guess that,' she added aloud.

'Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?' said the March Hare.

'Exactly so,' said Alice.

'Then you should say what you mean,' the March Hare went on.

'I do,' Alice hastily replied. 'At least - at least I mean what I say - that's the same thing, you know.'

'NOT THE SAME THING A BIT!' said the Hatter. 'You might as well say that 'We've obliterated all nuclear capabilities' is the same thing as 'They don't pose any nuclear threat'!'

'You might as well say,' added the March Hare, 'that 'We've established regime change,' is NOT the same thing as 'We have made changes in the regime!'

'You might as well say,' added the Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in his sleep in Spanish, 'Nato is useless' is the same as 'No necesitamos la ayuda de la Otan.'

'It is the same thing with you, Little Dormo,' said the Hatter. And here the conversation dropped, and the party went silent.

Just as Alice was about to get up and leave, she noticed an off-ramp next to a tree. None at the table took the least notice of her going, though she looked back once or twice, half hoping that they would call after her. The last time she saw them, they were trying to put the Dormouse into a Kool-Aid-filled teapot marked 'CUBA'.

As she neared the tree with the off-ramp next to it, she could make out the Cheshire Cat, grinning with serenity. 'That's very curious!' she thought. 'But everything's curious these days.'

The Cheshire Cat's smile and whiskers hovered in the air, detached from his body. 'This is not the age of tea parties,' he purred, 'Wars are illusions. Be strategically autonomous.' And then he vanished, leaving only his grin.