A. Hey, they cheered! Then I called for a voice vote. It was two-thirds to stomp him. Meanwhile some fucking maniac recorded it and took it to the Milwaukee Journal. And the U.S. attorney in Milwaukee was baout to indict me on two felony charges: five years for threating the vice-president and another five for inciting others to do it. ... I started getting calls from the Secret Service.
Q. Did you answer any of those calls?
A. Not at first, because I thought they were cranks. If it was important, they'd leave a message. And then the Secret Service showed up at the Examiner and at my lecture agency. I realized they were serious. So I called the Secret Service guy in Denver, Larry Hoppe. And he was very nice. And I said, ``What's going on here, man?'' And Hoppe said, ``Dr. Thompson, let me tell you one thing: I would advise you not to go to Washington without talking to me first.'' So I said, ``Come on over. What the hell.''
Well, we talked for a while, and by that time Hoppe knew it was a joke. I said, ``Have times changed? I've threatened to drage people around Washington by their nuts behind Oldsmobiles at a hundred miles an hour. I've advocated the slaughter of all politicians. What are the guidelines now?''
He had a pretty good sense of humor. He said, ``Well, you can't say that he should be strung up. If you say that to people, WHAP! Ten years. You can say he should be tarred and feathered.'' And I said, ``Wait a minute. I don't grasp it. What's the difference?'' And Hoppe says, ``I don't know. That's the way it is. Don't go out anymore and threaten to string George Bush up or stomp him to death.''
Q. Now, to what level of public figure does this extend? Take somebody I really hate, like Meese. Meese is not an elected official. Can I say that somebody should slice Meese open and wrap his intestines around a phone booth?
A. No, you probably can't. He should be flogged -- just not to death.
Q. What if we said Messe should be fucked by an elk?
A. That's apparently harmless as hell. I believe that Ed Meese -- being a person without any honor, a fat bastard, really a congenital cheap pig in the style of and on the level of Richard Nion -- should be locked in a large concrete basement with an elk. And the elk should be ram-fed full of acid before he's put in there.
Q. An angry, horny, acid-crazed elk.
A. Meese is naked, and the elk is huge, maybe 800 plus.
Q. Elk can be ugly customers.
A. And once they're full of acid, and they're really horny -- oh yeah, all night long!
