"Nyuking" it up in D.C.

With apologies to Bozo and Pagliacci, it is now clear that we have a clown for a president — a great big orange buffoon with tiny fingers and a big red necktie long enough to trip over.

Barnum & Bailey may be history, but we still have POTUS & Pence.

“Indubitably!” as the Three Stooges would say.

I’ve been thinking about the Stooges a lot lately — not the clown posse chasing after President Pratfall — but the original lords of mayhem. Where have you gone Moe, Larry and Curly: a nation turns its lonely eyes to you?

Before the current administration, few would have considered the Stooges candidates for high office.

But who would have been better than Curly at “nyuk, nyuk, nyuking” it up with the Russians in the Oval Office— and spilling the nation’s beans in the bargain?

Or take Moe (please!). He could show these White House amateurs a thing or two about making America LOL. The mop-topper could turn a formal state dinner into an epic food fight with one hand tied behind his back. Can of peas, anyone? Perchance a pie in the face, Chancellor Merkel?

Which brings us to Larry, who would make a tremendous White House Chief of Strategy and Weird Hairdos, not to mention an unbelievable spokes-imbecile.

What this zany trio of yesteryear had in common with President Parvenu was a gift for continuous chaos. They behaved like cats in a sack: slapping and eye-poking one another to beat the band. The boys were a human hurricane. Whatever they touched turned to rubble: homes, gardens, businesses, democracies, you name it.

The genius of the Stooges was that they were dangerous without really trying. When the trio went hunting, they bagged one another, generally where they had the most padding. If they were dogcatchers, the smart money was on the pooches. If their mission were to drain the swamp, they’d turn it into a great lake.

Alas, the Stooges have passed on to the Happy Slapping Ground, but were they with us today, and threw their fedoras into the ring for 2020, I am confident they’d win. After all, what have we got to lose?

So what would a Stooge administration look like? Who would fill out its comedic ranks? Moe Howard would be president, of course, he being the loudest, crudest and most ill-informed of the three.

For vice president, Moe might look for someone with a solid grounding in sycophancy and a blind eye to idiocy in high places. If Howdy Doody wasn’t available, he could keep Mike Pence on.

Curly would make a great Secretary of Offense, affronting enemies and allies alike with his slapstick shenanigans. Larry would kill as Secretary of Nepotism and Crony Capitalism.

But where will we turn once we run out of Stooges? Fortunately, there actually were six Three Stooges, whose ranks included, at various times, Shemp, Curly Joe and Joe Besser.

Still, we’d need more stand-up incompetents. How about resurrecting Bud Abbott and Lou Costello to take over for Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, those vehemently unfunny congressional hacks? W.C. Fields could replace Stevie Bannon in a heartbeat: the late lush once averred, “I am free of prejudice. I hate everybody equally.”

Fear not, my fellow bemused Americans, the possibilities are endless, thanks to the man we elected to our highest office, the wizard who has blurred, nay, erased the line between reality and satire. Nothing is too silly for America in this brave new century.

Let’s see: how about Spanky as Secretary of Defense; Alfalfa could head up Agriculture; Miss Crabtree could be Education Secretary; Stymie as Secretary of State; and Porky would be chairMAN of a new department—the He-Man Womun-Haters Club.

What a cabinet of curiosities!

Nonetheless, I submit to you that the Little Rascals would be preferable to the big ones who are running the sideshow in our nation’s capital.