I was throwing darts at my Saddam Hussein dartboard the other day when I heard the shocking… I was throwing darts at my Saddam Hussein dartboard the other day when I heard the shocking news that the United States was ending the search for weapons of mass destruction. I have to tell you, sir, that I’m devastated. I mean, you told me they were there. And now they’re not? I don’t buy it. They have to be there. You don’t understand the lengths I’ve gone to.

Right now, I’m wearing a T-shirt that reads “WMDs: Still lookin’ good looking.” The reason I’m wearing this T-shirt is because after you declared war on Iraq, I took out a loan and started my own company. I began producing merchandise and various sorts of propaganda celebrating the United States’ mission to disarm Iraq. I remember you telling me that Iraq had “horrible poisons and diseases and gases and atomic weapons.” Since you uttered those words, I have based my life around what you said.

I started merchandising. I printed shirts with catchy and promiscuous sayings and sold them outside my local church. After I sold a few of those, I moved on to bumper stickers, key chains and a few choice sex toys. They sold well at first, but after a few months passed and we still hadn’t found any WMDs, people stopped coming to my roadside stand. Because I didn’t turn a profit, I had to close up shop.

But then Fox News reported that American troops had found WMDs in Iraq, and I went crazy. I ran out in the street and danced naked around my block screamin’ and hollerin’ about the news. I reopened shop, and the business poured in. Everybody within a three-mile radius of my house ended up with something I was selling. You may have noticed one of my shirts on the Dec. 15 episode of “The Late Show.” One of the audience members had on a shirt that read, “Please No Disease,” and it had your face on it.

My exciting business venture did not last long. Every major news outlet that wasn’t Fox News kept stating that WMDs had still not been found. Despite my repeated playing of Fox News coverage on a small television set at my stand, people eventually stopped believing that we had found the weapons. Sales tanked, and I lost millions.

Months passed. We still had not found WMDs in Iraq; I was becoming paranoid. I knew they had to be there. When the president tells you something, it’s the truth. I began waiting at the airport for people who were returning from Iraq and asking them if they had seen any weapons. I watched newscasts of the war around the clock. I subscribed, at great cost to myself, to a Web site that offered to provide live satellite footage of Iraq. I had to find the weapons.

Six months ago, I visited the country of Iraq. While there, I purchased the most high-tech metal detectors available and began scouring the country by foot. I want you to know that each day of my journey, my life was threatened at least once. My exploration was cut short after I contracted a disease and had to return to the United States for medical reasons. During the flight back, I prayed that my disease might be one of the horrible ones you described to me. Upon examination by an American physician, I unfortunately learned that I had only contracted run-of-the-mill gonorrhea.

But up until the recent news that WMDs were not found, I had still believed they were there. After I was discharged from the hospital, I invested several thousand dollars in a bomb shelter and hermetically sealed house. By then, I had gone mildly insane and feared that any day, when our guard was dropped, remaining factions of Saddam’s troops would use all their terrible weapons on us. The weapons have to be there, Mr. President. Please, do not stop looking. If they were not there, sir, you would have been lying to me. The president should not be a liar.

If that is the unfortunate case, I think you should apologize to me, and then we’ll just move on. I mean, I might have lost my home and all of my money, and I have only a pile of “Don’t Gas The Children” T-shirts to sleep under and a burning sensation when I pee, but hey, easy come, easy go. At least nobody died.

Sincerely,

The Most Gullible Man on Earth

E-mail David J. McCarthy at [email protected].