Elizabeth Warren as imagined by Monty Python

Watching Elizabeth Warren boast about her “plan” for Mitch McConnell shows she has a doppelgänger in the Monty Python universe — John Cleese’s Anne Elk.

Elizabeth Warren Anne Elk Monty Python John CleeseDo you remember how, during last week’s debate, Elizabeth Warren stated that she had a plan for dealing with Mitch McConnell and then promptly followed that statement with meaningless blather? Even TIME Magazine figured out that, her statement about a plan notwithstanding, Warren had nothing of value to say:

The same was true when it came to Warren’s plans about gun violence. Instead of having a plan, she wants to conduct a study. She can conduct studies until the cows come home, but that’s not a plan; that’s a process.

Watching Warren debate tickled a memory and today I finally realized what memory it tickled. A famous Monty Python sketch had John Cleese playing Anne Elk, a woman who had a new theory about dinosaurs. Like Warren who, no matter the question, repeatedly falls back on her statement that she has a plan, Elk, no matter the question, insists that she has a theory.

Sadly, the original sketch is no longer available for computer viewing, but this recent John Cleese updates works reasonably well, especially because, now that he’s older, Anne Elk looks surprisingly like Warren herself:

I know who and what Warren is, not just because she was a teacher I disliked and disrespected a long time ago, before she became a Native American and moved to Harvard. I also know what she is because I know America history: She’s Woodrow Wilson — an arrogant academic with lots of theories and prejudices, all of which function horribly in the real world. Wilson was an awful president and Warren would be an awful president were she to get the nomination.

(By the way, speaking of theories, this is my theory: Kamala Harris will get the Democrat Party nomination. In that case, she may well choose Warren to be her Veep. Should that happen, expect instant stories how about how the two women bonded immediately and are besties who will go on to become the most dynamic POTUS/VEEP team in history.

I base this theory on the news reports that instantly emerged when Clinton chose Gore as his Veep. The media was saturated with loving encomiums about the friendship between the two men and the happy date night foursomes with Bill and Hillary on one side of the table at the soda fountain and Al and Tipper on the other side of the table.)