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Show Our Man Hoppe A Lovely War By ARTHUR HOPPE The President is reportedly demanding de-manding that all aspiring office seekers pledge their loyalty not only to the Democratic Party and himself, but to his policies in Vietnam. Viet-nam. The goal, of course, is party unity. un-ity. And the loyalty test is being applied, according to one report, even down unto the levels of sanitary sani-tary district trustees. Take the case of Mr. Malcolm . Murdlee, an ambitious but honest depilatory salesman who yearned to serve his country on his local Federal District Featherbed Inspection In-spection Commission. At $18,500 per annum. Mr. Murdlee was in town to present pre-sent his qualifications as a featherbed feather-bed inspection commissioner to the Democratic National Committee. "I ring 2300 doorbells every November, No-vember, tithe myself annually for the Party, and have never missed the County's Jefferson Day Meatball Meat-ball & Sauerkraut dinner," began Mr. Murdlee proudly. "Moreover I loved everything there is to love about our beloved President, including in-cluding how he picks up dogs and the way he says 19 and 68." "Tut, tut, Mr. Murdlee, enough small talk," said a committeeman. - "Do you support the President's policies in Vietnam?" "Sure, sure," said Mr. Murdlee. "Let's see, I seek no wider war and I think the Asian boys should do their own fighting." "Great scott, Murdlee, you're supporting the President's 1964 policies: pol-icies: We're looking for an up-to-date policy supporter for this job." "Sorry, sir," said Mr. Murdlee meekly. "Give me another chance." ' "Well, then, do you see Khe Sanh as the important western anchor of our northern defense perimeter, guarding, as it does, five major infiltration routes, and thus worth defending to the last man?" "That sounds like a trap," said Mr. Murdlee suspiciously, but he quickly added: "I mean the question." ques-tion." "What about the President's decision de-cision to reactivate the battleship New Jersey?" asked a second committeeman. com-mitteeman. "Do you feel the cost accounting factors governing naval shore bombardment justify the expenditures ex-penditures and risks?" "Wait," said another. "Ask him first his tactical evaluation of redeploying re-deploying the Air Cavalry Division north to I Corps area, thus depleting deplet-ing II Corps area, but at the same time . . ." So it went. Mr. Murdlee appeared ap-peared to be holding his own by simply nodding vigorously. Unfortunately, Un-fortunately, he refused to support the President's recent decision to call up 15,000 reserves, stubbornly insisting that 13,237 would have been, by his evaluation, adequate. He was, of course, summarily ushered out of the hearing room and the job was given to a deaf-mute deaf-mute plumber with a stiff neck which permitted him to ncd his only up and down. As for Mr. Murdlee, lie returned home and immediately changed his registration to Republican. He was asked if he felt he could more comfortably support the Republican Re-publican Party's Vietnam policy. "Exactly," he said comfortably, "They don't have one." |