Coup time

This editorial is a part of The Daily Princetonian's annual joke issue. Don't believe everything you read on the Internet.

If 2006 showed us anything, it was that the Princeton community is in the ascendancy nationwide. The University topped the U.S. News and World Report rankings, beating out it its perennial, but decidedly less sprightly rival from Cambridge. Come on, a Crimson isn't even a real mascot. In the autumn, a decade of effort by successive football teams paid off with victories over Harvard and Yale. To celebrate, we lit up Cannon Green like the Revolutionary War, Part Deux, with a $10,000 bonfire, as if to say, "We spent that much, because we can." PRINCO later announced that the University was, on a per-student basis, richer than God. Sure, Donald Rumsfeld '54 was replaced as secretary of defense. But his replacement chose as the new Grand Poobah in Iraq Gen. David Petraeus GS '87. The conclusion from this steady aggrandizement of power is simple: Let's just seize control. Hey, it worked for Thailand.

Princeton already has an all-star cast of characters to fill out your typical Temporary (but not really) National Stability Government. President Tilghman would barely have to touch her stationary since her job title would be the same. Wilson School Dean Anne-Marie Slaughter '80 would not have to move to take up her new post as secretary of state: Robertson Hall could simply assume its natural role as National Capitol/Oracle, from which all really important policy rightfully emanates. Dean of the College Nancy Malkiel would delight in curbing progressive tax inflation as Treasury secretary, ensuring that only 35 percent of Americans could be in the top income tax bracket. Not only would this make things fairer for citizens across all departments, it was also the way America taxed as recently as the early 1990s.

Some more critical readers may say, "Yes, good idea, but how many armies has Shirley T?" Clearly, these readers have never been to Reunions. Drunken Princetonians can be made to do anything and to do it fervently. If, after a few drinks, donating a few hundred thousand for the Class of 19— dorm, garden or concrete block with tricorn hat on it a la Class of 1976 Plaza can be made to seem like a good idea, why not taking over the country? As he so ably demonstrated during the Yale game, USG president-elect Rob Biederman '08 possesses considerable bus-chartering skills; he could use these to deploy rabidly drunk Princeton alums to Washington, D.C., immediately after the last Reunions party this June. The Feds would never know what hit them. It would be like the Whiskey Rebellion all over again — except successful.

With the recent electoral victory of the Democrats in Congressional midterm elections, the nation faces two years of major partisan pain. Why not just replace this dreadful state of affairs with a benevolent dictatorship? There is no doubt that Princeton students could be counted on to give the affairs of state their full attention and ability. Except, of course, during midterms, finals, the 48 hours before Dean's Date and Thursday and Saturday nights.