An Oral History of the Romney Presidency, Part Two.

For part one, click here.

Transcript, 2014 Caspian Summit
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iranian President: [translated comments from keynote address] The United States remains the puppet of the Zionist regime. It is ironic that the Jew, so quick to play the victim in World War II, has now established his own Vichy government in the United States.
President Romney: Hey, Buster Brown! Mind your peas and carrots!

Petraeus
Even if he'd just left it at that, I don't see how things could have gone the way they did. Ahmedinejad wasn't even offended. Shimon Peres had called him Hitler's heir apparent and an ally of terror and discord just a few days before. He didn't do anything other than some empty saber-rattling. I'm not even sure he noticed "peas and carrots."

Testa
Mitt kept saying he wanted to smooth over the peas and carrots thing. I remember [Attorney General Eugene] Scalia saying to him at a cabinet meeting one time, "Mitt, what is there to smooth over? I'm just not seeing it." Those were his exact words. And Mitt just kept talking about how he knew he had stepped way over the line and wanted to make things right, how he just felt awful, all this shit. He said Ahmedinejad was a "bad egg" but that he needed to take the high road. "Beacon on a hill," that's what he kept saying. The last time I remember really feeling hope—like, the actual sensation of hope, in my life—was one of the last times he brought it up, and he said, "It was my bad" and then gave this kind of tired smile. I thought he was doing his M.C. Mitt act again and was halfway to forgetting about the whole thing. Obviously, I was wrong.

Petraeus
And of course I just wish I could turn back the clock and stop everything right when Mitt decided he was going to pick a Scout troop at random to send on the diplomatic mission to Iran. I don't know why we didn't require an application, or hell, why we couldn't have just hired some damn kid actors to stage the whole thing. It should have just been a glorified photo-op! I mean, I was amazed Iran actually said yes in the first place. I really wanted to err on the side of caution. But Mitt really wanted to shake his out-of-touch elitist image. He seemed to think that the random selection would help with that. And he just kept quoting the Boy Scout Oath and saying that no Scout could ever let our country down.

Craig Storck, U.S. interests representative, Swiss Embassy, Tehran
I had a bad feeling about the whole thing the second the Scouts stepped off the helicopter. They just looked like rough characters—one of these kids had a full beard, for Chrissakes! He couldn't have been more than 13. These were not normal kids.

Piccolo
I had such high hopes. I really wanted my boys to do us in the organization proud. I didn't expect what happened to happen. I don't think you could find a man alive who did. And if you found him, well hell, I wish you'd introduce me so I could ask him why he never said anything to me.

Storck
It started out fine. The kids, or whatever they were, did a tour of a village in the Alborz Mountains. Then they went to see a traditional Persian music concert.

Conroy
That shit was mad gay, man. I laughed like a motherfucker at that shit. Some dude was playing this flute thing that sounded like a fuckin' goose, man. Shit cracked my ass up.

Transcript, Roudaki Hall Opera House, amateur recording
Young male #1: Ooh! Somebody farted! Shit stinks!
Older male, muffled: Please! [unintelligible] Show some decorum!
Iranian male, speaking Farsi: [unintelligible]
Young male #2: The fuck you talkin' about, faggot?
[sounds of a struggle]
Young male #2: Gimme back my M-80s, man! This dude took my M-80s!
[sounds of a struggle]
[gunfire]

Conroy
Yeah, I took that dude's gun. They left these four-wheeler things out by the entrance; we took them too. Guess we rode over some graves or whatever.

Petraeus
The last thing I just can't stop thinking about: if Mitt had just been harder on those kids, made an example out of them...I know he thought he reamed them pretty hard. I'm not sure if I should say this on the record, but I think everyone knows by now that Mitt himself was the one who ordered his "dressing down" to get leaked to the press.

President Romney, from leaked White House tape
You boys really stepped in it this time, pardon my French! What were you thinking? Don't answer that. I know the answer: you weren't thinking! Look, I know what it's like to be your age and to have a hard time figuring things out. During my misspent youth, yes, I tried a beer. I tried a cigarette. They weren't for me, but look: Your bodies are changing; your hormones are going a mile a minute—hey, when you're my age, you'll wish it was still like that.

But seriously, guys, this kind of crud just isn't acceptable. It's beneath you and it's beneath this land that we all love, Lady America. But don't take my word for it. Just ask M.C. Mitt. Ohhh, being rude! Is not the bomb! Just ask me, ‘cause I'm the Rom! International relations! Are a thrill! All I ask is that you not be a pill! Get the picture? Word.

Isn't that a riot? My daughter taught me that. "Word." Oh, hold on, you kids are gonna love this. Picked this puppy up at Spencer's Gifts. They've got some raunchy stuff, but if you go in there with a true heart and pure spirit, you can get through the junk and find some stuff that is just a gas. Anyway, this is my "insta-rapper kit." You've got the teeth and the sunglasses, and look! Wrap this around your waist and it looks like you've got big, puffy underwear coming up over your pants. Isn't that [tape cuts out]

Petraeus
Ahmedinejad didn't take the president's response well. Thought it was an egregious mockery of his power and Iran's place on the global stage. Why that was the final straw, I'll never know. But we all know what happened next.

President Mitt Romney, farewell address, Dec. 17, 2014
My fellow Americans. Sorry: Continental Craterites. Not sure I'll ever get used to that. You know, Ann, my wife, was still accidentally introducing herself as "Ann Davies" for at least a year after we got married. Although maybe it wasn't such an accident. Her pet name for me is "President Knucklehead." Only joking. But seriously, folks, we've been through some trying times together.

And as I stand here on the smoking rubble that was once Washington, D.C.—or maybe this is New York. Goodness knows my sense of direction ain't what it used to be. Also, the entire eastern seaboard is unrecognizable, and the near constant electromagnetic pulses that I know have been a bee in our collective bonnet have made navigation by GPS or even compass virtually impossible. And don't even get me started on not being able to see the stars in order to navigate by them. Ai-yi-yi, the nuclear smog reminds me of Los Angeles, Califor-nye-aye. Once upon a time, of course.

Anyway, as I stand here on this burned-out hull of what may once have in fact been Washington, or perhaps New York or Philadelphia or Bangor, Maine, I know that while the U.S. of A. might be in a better place now, her memory burns stronger and longer than the endless acres of fire pits that the cannibals out in Nevada now keep aflame day and night.

I firmly believe that, even if America as it was once known to the world is gone, with all knowledge that it ever existed due to fade from the world's memory in just a few short generations, the American dream is still alive. If we can get past this, overcome the cannibalism and the mass mutations and the blizzards of ash and bone shards that descend upon us nightly, I know in my heart that we can be strong again.

In closing, my captors have asked me to say a few words: fart piss ass ass dick weiner butt. If I may speak freely, I hope everyone listening to this on vinyl or, in the future, on some sort of pirate radio transmission, in case the electromagnetic attacks stop one day, will pray for those holding me hostage to gain some measure of maturity. Thank you, and farewell.

President-Elect Mitt Romney, election victory speech, Nov. 6, 2012
As president, I will usher in a new era of peace, prosperity, and industry, the likes of which haven't been known since the Greatest Generation answered the call of duty. Or since I was smoothing things over with Ann after I forgot our anniversary! I kid, I kid! Oh, hey Tagg, got your nose! Ha ha! Groovy, baby! Yeah! Ha ha ha.