Once upon a time, in a kingdom somewhere between here and there, there dwelt, as is so often the case in these tale thingies, a king and a dragon. Among many others, of course. But I digress. Already. Back to the king and dragon, then.

The dragon was a lot like dragons usually are: a honking big reptile with scales, wings, fiery breath, a bit of attitude, and a large accumulation of gold, jewels, and negotiable securities that made Number 7 on Dragon World magazine's list of Top Ten Treasures of the World. He spent most of his time zonked out and snoring on top of his treasure.

The king was one of those regal Type A kind of guys, a real go-getter. And what he decided he really wanted to go get, was the dragon. The name of the king, by the way, was George. The dragon didn't have a name that could be translated into human.

"Right!" bawled King George. "That dragon is a clear and present danger to my kingdom! Let's you guys go kill him!"

Not all of King George's people were eager to jump into his fray, however. Even some of his advisers raised objections.

"That dragon lives over yonder on that mountain," noted the first adviser. "It's far away, and its peaks are shrouded with clouds. So, the dragon is neither present nor clear ... actually."

"It mostly sleeps," said the second adviser. "Have the ancients not said, 'Let sleeping dragons lie?'"

"It seems kind of ... unnecessary to me," said the third adviser. "Not to mention hellatiously dangerous."

So King George sacked all his advisers and got new ones, who didn't raise objections.

"Kill the dragon!" shouted the first new adviser.

"Right on!" cheered the second.

"Yee-ha!" howled the third.

The first set of advisers is nameless because they weren't around long enough. The second set is nameless because they couldn't put together a complete personality among them.

And so the royal advisers were on board for the dragon adventure. The people, however, were another matter.

"You wouldn't be after the dragon's treasure, would you?" suggested one bold subject named Glor.

"What treasure would that be?" asked King George. "The 807.2 billion simoleon hoard, consisting of 2.93 tons of gold, 120,443 cut diamonds, 276,128 rubies, 76,214 emeralds, and 147 billion simoleons in gilt-edged securities? Utter nonsense!"

"The dragon doesn't seem to be any danger to us," said Plonk. "Near as I can tell, it mainly just hangs out over yonder and kind of wallows in its treasure."

"Hah!" retorted King George. "A lot you know! I have expert advisers on dragon behavior, and they all say the same thing!"

"And what is that?" asked Plonk.

"'Kill the dragon,' 'Right on,' and 'Yee-ha!'" replied the king.

"Oh, I see," said Plonk.

"What about the danger to our knights?" asked a woman named Wanda. "I don't see any return coming from this that would justify putting all those lives in danger."

"What?" gasped King George. "You don't support our men in armor?! Shame on you!"

"That isn't what I said ... "

"What about 'letting sleeping dragons lie?'" added Glor.

"You just leave the lying to me!" fumed King George. "Attack! Attack! Attack! And guys? As soon as you engage the lizard, make sure to secure that t-r-e-a-s-u-r-e, ok?"

"This has unmitigated disaster written all over it," observed Wanda. "The dragon's going to get all riled up, decimate our knights, and burn the kingdom to the ground. And after all of that, you're still not going to get your t-r-e-a-s-u-r-e."

And so, after the king's gendarmes had arrested Wanda for jaywalking and roughed her up to bring home the lesson of proper observation of traffic laws, the War Against Dragons began. King George's knights attacked from all sides, but, once the surprised dragon figured out what was going on, the Fire Front and Claw Front were quickly abandoned. The Wing Fronts followed shortly. In the end, in fact, the only tenable arena of battle was ... the end. The surviving knights clung desperately to the dragon's tail, poking ineffectually at the impenetrable scales. The dragon, while not seriously wounded, was mightily pissed. Off it flew, bellowing and randomly scorching anything that looked or smelled human.

Reaction at home was mixed.

"What an unmitigated disaster!" said the people.

"Kill the dragon, right on, and yee-ha!" said the king's advisers. "Anyone who says different is a traitor."

"Stay the course!" bawled King George.

So the riled-up dragon decimated the knights and burned the kingdom to the ground. Again, reaction was mixed.

"Gosh, no one could have predicted this!" said King George sincerely. "Anyone who says different is a traitor."

"What a bozo!" said the people.

In this climate, a lot of ... potential king replacements, or PKRs, appeared. They were full of ideas, among other things.

"Join my army and help overthrow King George!" urged the first PKR. "I'll lower the deficit!"

"Join my army!" countered the second PKR. "I support a woman's right to choose!"

"No, join my army!" shouted PKR number three. "I support universal health insurance!"

"I'm for all of that!" cried the fourth PKR. "Join my army!"

"My, my," mused Glor. "So many usurpers to choose from! Everyone knows that King George has to go, but which one to choose?"

"I like PKR #4," said Plonk. "He's very progressive!"

"Has anyone noticed anything odd about all these would-be usurpers?" interjected Wanda.

"Uh, no, not really," said Plonk. "They're all better than King George."

"Hmm, yes," she agreed, "but haven't you noticed that none of them has said anything about getting our knights off the dragon's tail?"

"Oh, but we can't do that," replied Glor.

"We ... can't?" gasped Wanda. "Why the heck not?"

"It's too late for that," said Glor. "We have an obligation to stay the course."

"Have you been possessed?" asked Wanda suspiciously.

"Oh, no!" insisted Glor. "If we pulled the knights now, there's no telling what damage the dragon might do! The people are depending on us to avert a catastrophe!"

"You mean ... a worse catastrophe than we're experiencing now?" Wanda cocked an eyebrow.

"Oh, yes!" continued Glor. "Without our brave knights pestering the beast like so many fleas, there's no telling what it would do!"

"Maybe it would go back to its mountain," suggested Wanda. "In any case, as long as we have a whacking great angry lizard flying around burning everything in sight, and we expend all our blood and treasure on making it angrier, it isn't going to matter who's king. No one will be able to do anything except fight the dragon."

"But PKR #4 will fight the war better," insisted Glor.

"Uh, how ... exactly?" asked Wanda. "Or even approximately?"

"Uh ... more knights on the tail, I should suppose," suggested Glor. "And ... we can explain to the dragon that it was all King George's fault! And we're not like that ... as we keep jabbing it in the tail."

"None of that has worked yet," Wanda pointed out. "More knights, more jabbing, more talk ... All it does is make the dragon madder."

"But we have a moral obligation!" insisted Glor. "We must make amends for the initial cynical, immoral, brutal action ... by performing a lot more cynical, immoral, brutal actions! Don't you understand that?"

Dedicated to the crowd who think we can --must!-- pay our debt to Iraq by prolonging the illegal occupation and slaughter. Gosh, withdrawing our troops could trigger a civil war! Unlike the current SNAFU, which I must admit is uncivil. Folks, the civil war is underway. Providing a common enemy is the only service our continued occupation can offer.