“ To make the more alarming subject matter digestible, the writers search for ways to frame the story, using an arsenal of techniques ranging from wordplay (“Mess O’Potamia,” “BAD vertising”) to exercises in pure logic (deconstructing the administration’s talking points on the surge) to demented fantasy sequences (imagining Vice President Dick Cheney sending an army of orcs to attack Iran when he assumed the presidency briefly last year during President Bush’s colonoscopy).
