HENRY: Why do you have all this fan mail from the Log Cabin Republicans, Addington?

ADDINGTON BEAR: They’ve always been appreciative of my work as a bear in Washington. Like a ferocious, half-starved Kodiak, I refuse to reason with others and I never take no for an answer. If prompted, I will rise up on my hind legs and let loose a roar that can be heard clear to the Senate office buildings. Though, as you know, Mr. Brown, all I really have to do is give one of Aunt Lucy’s hard stares.

HENRY: But, Addington, this doesn’t sound like the polite little bear that always tried so hard to get things right! Even now, I see you as a fuzzy and portly, albeit middle-aged, bear. Though you are quite large, and bearded, I can’t think of a single person who would give up a chance to cuddle up in your arms.

ADDINGTON BEAR: Though they’re fierce and uncompromising, I suppose the Log Cabiners do see a softer side—a humorless and antisocial bear who just wants Americans to be spied on in peace. People who know about these things tell me that the Constitution counts their votes just as much as the next fellow’s, and as long as they’re not terrorists (which I’m having some old friends at the CIA look into), I’ll keep on accepting their support. Plus, it’s nice to know that someone actually likes me. I’ve been polling terribly since my storybook career ended.

HENRY: Mrs. Brown and I are so proud of you, Addington, always keeping your nose to the grindstone over here. When I first saw you on that train-station platform so many years ago, I knew immediately that you’d be polite and kind, but who knew you’d turn out to be such an industrious and scheming bear as well?!

ADDINGTON BEAR: Though I’m stunned that your suspect reasoning skills and woeful self-confidence have led you to such a conclusion, you are indeed correct. All those years spent at 32 Windsor Gardens, saving you Browns from the gravest of catastrophes, taught me that the majority of people should have no hand in governance. You see, every genius bear must grow up and leave the delicious marmalade sandwiches and cocoa of his youth to embrace the brutal and unforgiving reality of neoconservatism and enhanced interrogation techniques. When I arrived in America as a grown bear and caught sight of the shimmering, fetid waters of the Potomac, I knew that I could carry on the finest legacy of my beloved Darkest Peru—expanded executive privilege.

HENRY: You know I don’t keep up with your politics in the colonies, Addington. Are you referring to Tony Blair?

ADDINGTON BEAR: Of course you don’t keep up with the political goings-on in the biggest superpower the world has ever known, because you are a bumbling and impotent city bureaucrat—the kind that needs to be excised from the government so that the president can do his job. No, Mr. Brown, I’m talking about a man who speaks not with a boyish, lilting charm but with a growling condescension from the corner of his mouth. He is a man who believes the president shall be king, and the Court and Congress his squabbling and ineffectual council of nobles. He is a man who once had a chief of staff named Scooter, and now has one named Bear. There are those who call him Dick, but he is my Mr. Gruber of America.

HENRY: I’m sensing a lot of hostility, Addington. Do you harbor some sort of resentment toward Mrs. Brown and me for taking you in, that day at the station?

ADDINGTON BEAR: I resent you like I resent the Geneva Conventions and the Office of Legal Counsel. You and all your kind live in a fairy-tale world with manners, and warmth, and talking teddy bears, for God’s sake! Well, allow me to let you in on a little secret, Dad. The world is full of terrorists who want to decapitate Jonathan and Judy with scimitars and keep the president from using signing statements to circumvent the Constitution. And, though you may not appreciate it, I will continue to torture enemy combatants in secret detention centers until the entire world recognizes the president’s right to do whatever the vice president tells him to do.