The audience of one could see that Southern Man Bill was warming to his task.
"Communists show me pictures of tar-sealed roads, takeaway bars and road signage purporting to belong to somewhere called Gore ...
"But if they can fake moon landings, they can easily fake Gore, too. Mark my words!"
The world climate change authority duly noted the Prime Ministerial words on the back of her latest climate collapse chart.
"Super," reiterated the deputy. "Great," added the Finance Minister, because he's good at adding.
"I, too, have seen those very takeaway bars and signs on the few occasions I was in my constituency during my many years as an electorate MP.
"And even though I once bought a burger there, I wasn't fooled for a minute. I could tell straight away it was a fake burger -- it didn't have a slice of beetroot like a real Southern burger.
"Halfway through my burger, I asked Gore straight out -- 'Gore,' I demanded, 'Gore, do you exist?' And you know what, I didn't hear a word back."
Farmer Bill flicked a disapproving glance at the Finance and Climate Collapse ministers, who were halfway through a KFC family pack each. In fairness, it had been 20 minutes since they had last both eaten. But the Prime Minister was not to be diverted.
"So if Gore doesn't exist, how can these supposed Todd Barclay tapes exist?" he thundered.
Just to prove he had been to university, the Prime Minister answered his own question: "They can't because they don't.
"They're a pigment of people's imagination -- and when Todd Barclay offered to play them for me, he was only talking in an epistemological sense that was, in fact, posing a daring new interpretation of the very nature of reality."
Steven and Paula both licked their fingers in appreciation, then Paula licked hers again because she had missed a few bits of gravy.
But the Prime Minister wasn't finished.
"During his visit to New Zealand, when President Clinton was presented with a souvenir photograph of the famous Clinton and Gore crossroad signs, did Bill and Al Gore really think that Gore and Clinton actually existed?
"No, they certainly did not -- they knew it was all just a harmless Southern ontological prank.
"What's more, Bill personally assured me he'd never had sex with Gore, so how could it possibly exist?
"As a seriously religious man, part of my occasional trips south were to confirm that the Dipton log cabin which was me and my family's primary place of residence, still actually existed.
"If it didn't exist, I wouldn't have been able to claim the handsome ministerial housing allowance for the Karori mansion which served as our secondary place of residence for 99.99 per cent of the time.
"Luckily -- unlike Gore -- the cabin managed to exist right up until my cover got blown.
"By now, you've probably heard our catchy new campaign song Let's Get Together, and me and my colleagues and the National Party board are going to lead by example."
