Confidential to our Rummy: We all just love the "Henny Penny" shtick, but soon your fans won't let you do your act without it

I also saw—and loved—the Henny Penny mini-collage from our Rummy which Jon Stewart presented on last night's Daily Show.

Now, our Rummy is a superbly polished entertainer, but I just want to be sure he's considered the long-term implications when audiences come to identify a piece of business too closely with a performer. Eventually, there's the risk that they just won't let go. You know, like the way the Rolling Stones can't get up onstage anywhere, even now that they're pushing 100, without audiences demanding to hear "Satisfaction." Or the way former Attorney General "Honest John" Ashcroft can't appear anyplace without the fans demanding that he warble "Let the Eagle Soar."

Just imagine some time in the future—and it's looking dishearteningly far in the the future—when Rummy is finally pried out of the Pentagon and takes his club act on the road for lounge audiences in Peoria and Little Rock (or alternatively for $250K-a-pop corporate butt-lickers). The seedy club manager (or seedy Corporate Communications Director) introduces him, and he barely gets out his opening "A funny thing happened to me on the way to obliterate Iraq . . ." when a fan who has perhaps started celebrating our Rummy's appearance a little early shouts out, "What about Henny Penny?" Then, from the other side of the room, comes a shout of "Hey, dude, the sky is falling!" It's just a matter of time before the mood turns grim and the whole audience is shouting rhythmically, "DO HENNY PENNY! DO HENNY PENNY!"

And there he'll be: our Rummy, a prisoner of his own comic genius. He'll be wanting to move on to new material, like about the time he decided to obliterate Iran—"no, not Iraq, IRAN," he'll say with an exasperated chuckle, and he'll have them rolling in the aisles, but not until the diehard fans allow him to introduce new material. Wherever he goes, he'll always know that it's just a matter of time before a member of his adoring public hisses, "We wanna hear friggin' Henny Penny."

It could get ugly, Rummy. Don't ever say we didn't warn you.