Today's Tribune column: "Whiskey? It makes him mean,” with impenetrable satire at no extra charge.

"Fools are my theme, let satire be my song."
-- Lord Byron

BAYLOR: Whiskey? It makes him mean

... As a red hot summer turned to autumn, and recessions, elections and selections from another round of “Dancing with the Stars” distracted the public, Stemler retreated to his ornate underground command bunker at River Ridge — an exact facsimile of the one used by Vice President Cheney to ride out eight years of second fiddle playing.

A masterful counter-strike was in order — but how? Stemler’s fingers nervously drumming, he thought to himself: “I must find a way to keep these mere taxpayers from slumming!” Then, suddenly, the Political Commissar got a wonderful, awful idea. He barked into his cell phone: “Dalby, we’re having a photo-op. It’s time to show Hoosiers what it means to respect and obey their betters.”