Bupkes Interview Exclusive! Meet the Deep State's 200-Year-Old Tortoise
What, you thought this kind of consistent hegemonic brilliance wrote itself?
The nocturnal grab-and-go operation that the United States recently pulled off in Venezuela has suburban American parents everywhere envious of the speed and efficiency they could only dream of when driving to get their kids from school every afternoon.
Venezuela’s newly anointed brand ambassador for the military-industrial complex’s luxury line of premium eyemasks will now face American Justice™ on multiple counts of Conspiracy to Commit Unauthorized Acts of Presidential Dancing.
The morning after the highly choreographed event, a group of consistently underemployed and non-unionized B-level TV actors jumped at the chance to put on suits and answer a casting call for the roles of Very Serious Leaders Taken Very Seriously.
Reading from a prepared script, each took his turn assuring the world that the US had reasserted its dominance of the Western Hemisphere that no one thought was not asserted.
Needless to say, they nailed their audition. For good measure, one of them followed up with a video montage set to semi-autobiographical music.
Their success, however, was not theirs alone. Performers merely bring words on paper to life.
Who writes these words? The Bupkes wanted to know. The answer may surprise you.
In an incredible feat of consistency, surviving Civil War, civil rights, and successive governments rarely able to pass a normal budget, the same mid-level bureaucrat has been responsible for penning almost every major statement on American foreign policy for at least the last two centuries.
His name is Cob Bratchit.
Cob Bratchit lives under an unvarnished wooden desk in an uneventful room on the inside hallway on the 7th floor of the Harry S. Truman Building in Washington, DC.
Cob Bratchit is the US Government’s Permanent Interagency Wordsmith of Imperial Euphemism and Misdirection.
Cob Bratchit is a 200-year-old tortoise.
The Bupkes caught up with Cob Bratchit in the same place he’s been since at least 1820. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and clickbait.
The Bupkes: How old are you, exactly?
Cob Bratchit: Not really sure. At least as old as Peter Thiel.
TB: How did you get your start as the US Government’s Permanent Interagency Wordsmith of Imperial Euphemism and Misdirection?
CB: It was around 1822 or 1823, I think. I was living near the Potomac at the time, and the area was really changing. More money. Frillier ascots. Bushier mutton chops. It was hard not to notice the increase in political canings and illegitimate slave children about.
The real crime, though, was beer at my local tavern going up to six cents. If I wanted to afford that, I had to get a real job.
The Government was hiring a room full of writers to help with making imperialism sound more altruistic. No experience necessary. So I applied and was offered a spot.
TB: Tell us about your first big break.
CB: It wasn’t easy. It can take decades to go from a meager CAF-5 Class 2.1 to a P-3 Schedule 2a.
The big promotion came when Teddy was in need of something for the Philippines. Everyone was really pleased with my “soldiers do not shrink from labor or death, yet love liberty and peace.”
So about 20 years later, I was the obvious choice for Wilson’s “14 Points.” That reliable ol’ liberal was a natural at confusing peace for power.
They were simpler times.
TB: What changed?
CB: The atom bomb. …Tea?
TB: Uh, sure.
CB: It was probably my biggest challenge yet. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned in this business: Modernity is nothing if not putting science and progress to work in the well-intended service of all mankind.
The trick is turning a mass extermination event into a “powerful and forceful influence towards the maintenance of world peace.”
TB: It must have been a busy time.
CB: Oh, yes. Freedom was always almost ending everywhere.
An incident in the South China Sea probably would have been forgotten if not for an interest in “supporting freedom and in protecting peace.”
TB: What’s your advice for kids these days who say they want grow up to be an imperial wordsmith?
CB: The more you repeat something, the more true it sounds. So just say that a “strong United States is not a threat to peace” enough times until it is. Talk about being the “last, best hope of a better future,” without which there can be no “chance for a better life in dignity and freedom.”
TB: The hits keep coming. They certainly got their money’s worth with you.
CB: Certainly more than most weapons platforms my wordsmithing provides the rationale to use.
TB: Now, more recently, there have been some controversies. The smoking-gun-mushroom-cloud situation, for example.
CB: I knew you’d go there. Look, I write the words. I don’t tell them to land on an aircraft carrer.
Fortunately, they found Saddam in a hole, leading to promises of “sovereignty for your country, dignity for your great culture, the opportunity for a better life.”
Every day was opposite day then. You could get away with murder. Literally!
For extrajudicial assassination, “all who believe in peace and human dignity” was meant as a joke! I even got away with calling a NATO-induced sodomy the “end of a long and painful chapter.”
TB: Maybe they thought it was funny?
CB: Perhaps.
TB: How has your job changed in recent years?
CB: Well for a while I was worried that DOGE was going to take me out back and turn me into turtle soup. That’s what they did to Stan the USAID Lamb. Poor Stan.
Between these news guys having no problem with raw, unpretending power and their contempt for the Deep State, I was sure I was finished.
Then the Venezuela thing happened. Huge relief.
TB: Why?
CB: Because everything old is new again. Sure, there’s a bit more vibe, more weave. You end up with “people are free, they're free again. It's been a long time for them, but they're free”—not so elegant, but who am I to complain? You should try working under James Buchanan.
TB: Finally, have you ever thought about doing something with all this experience of yours? A tell-all memoir, perhaps? Or a YouTube channel? What’s next?
CB: It’s a good question. Maybe Greenland?