On the campaign trail, I often speak of “the two Americas.” No, not North and South America. Not Right and Left America. I speak of those at cocktail parties, but on the campaign trail, I speak of the other two Americas.
My friends, we are a country divided. We are not divided by 3 or by 4 or by the square root of your mama’s hypotenuse; we are divided by 2. Today, half of America believes that Chuck Norris is the deadliest man in the land, and the other half believes that “The Hoff” is the nation’s baddest bad-ass. This great debate pits brother against brother, sister against sister, weird uncle against third cousin once removed. It tears at the fabric of our lives like an angry crocodile in a Brazilian Supermodel’s lingerie drawer.
Where did this terrible schism begin? For years, Mr. Norris and Mr. The Hoff were coequal superpowers of primetime television whoop-ass. And then one night, The Hoff drank too many Fogcutters, talked too much smack, and got his ass kicked by an angry cheeseburger. A shocked America watched the video on YouTube. (If you missed it, it’s the one in which a bleary-eyed, slurring Hoff rolls around like an otter and then eats lettuce, tomato and onion off of his bathroom floor. I’ll have one of my interns post a link for you.)
The video was a tragic blow to the Hoff’s career — more tragic than Baywatch, even — but not everyone saw it exactly the same way. Where most viewers saw sad vulnerability, the Norris campaign team saw joyful opportunity. Just days after the YouTube posting, Mr. Norris told Neal Disputo of Fox News that The Hoff would be easy prey for any sissy-pants, sally-boy Kung Fu master who might happened along . . . Chuck Norris, for example.
Hoff’s agent fired back. “Right now,” she said, “my client is like Sylvester Stallone at the beginning of the first Rocky film — socially dysfunctional, drunk, addicted to junk food — but before you know it, he’ll be running stadium steps, doing push-ups with a Pontiac Firebird on his back, and causing a ruckus in the ladies’ locker room at Wimbledon.”
“And besides,” she added, “that cheeseburger was much tougher than it looked.”
So, my fellow Americans, we are called upon to make a difficult choice. We must decide which of these legendary bad-asses is baddest. But how can we fairly weigh their many pros and cons? Clearly, Mr. Norris has a quickness advantage. Some say he’s so quick, he can run around the world and punch himself in the back of the head. But The Hoff is as cunning as Richie Cunningham. While Chuck is wasting all that time and energy running around the world, the Hoff will surely be lying in wait, gathering strength, gnawing a Fixins Bar tomato slice into the shape a ninja throwing star.
The way I see it, this thing could go either way. So why take sides? Why don’t we just sit this one out . . . you know, remain above the fray? Heck, let’s skip the fray entirely and remain in the punchbowl. Somethings are worth standing up for — that’s true — but other things are worth sitting down for! As John Adams famously said, “United we stand, divided we sit!” My fellow Americans, today we must sit!
