Even if you missed watching the MTV Video Music Awards, you have by now certainly heard of Miley Cyrus’ controversy-causing performance. But what is all the fuss about, anyway?

I’ve heard stories of children crying to their parents when Cyrus appeared in flesh-colored latex bikini, jabbing at her crotch with a giant foam finger, desperately trying to rub her gyrating backside against anything – including inanimate objects like Robin Thicke – all the while flailing her tongue about. It was as if she was a snake – an evil, nymphomaniac snake – casting her prehensile glossus wildly throughout the air to sniff out field mice or, more likely, publicity.

How was Cyrus even able to sing with her tongue hanging out of her head the entire time? Terry Fator, watch your back.

Let’s get back to the crying children for a moment. If you actually watched the MTV VMAs with your young children, then you are a bad parent. Perhaps not Billy Ray Cyrus-level of bad parent, but a bad parent all the same. Congratulations, you and Will Smith finally have something in common.

Remember when Madonna tasted Britney Spears’ tonsils on live television? That was ten years ago. You’ve had at least 120 months of warning, pointing the way the VMAs were headed, before this ever happened. If there was even 120 seconds of warning that Miley Cyrus would be foam-finger-banging herself on the big screen in the living room, a good parent would throw a shoe through the screen with 119.5 seconds to spare.

And it’s not like Miley Cyrus stepped off the set of Hannah Montana and headed directly to Helmut’s Bondage Hut to pick up a flesh colored bikini en route to the VMAs. No, this has been happening for quite some time now. Even the bitter, frozen head of Walt Disney himself could see this one coming down the pike, and he’s been locked in a cryo-chamber beneath the Pirates of the Caribbean ride for nearly 50 years.

You are a bad parent for missing Cyrus’ transmogrification from being wholesome to, well… some hole.

Still, it’s not entirely your fault. Just as War Machine in Iron Man 3 was given a new coat of paint by the President to take on new missions for the country, so has Miley Cyrus. What I am saying is it should be fairly obvious that Miley Cyrus is an agent of the government; she is the misdirection of the left hand while the magician works the trick with the right hand.

Need to create mindless worker bees? Crank out sedating pablum à la Hannah Montana.

Need to distract the public’s attention from a potential new war, record debt and the destruction of the US dollar? Slap some new paint on War Machine and let the public talk about that instead. Just another shiny object to distract you from the matters at hand.

I wonder if President Obama watched the MTV Video Music Awards with his daughters. At the risk of mixing superhero references, I bet it went something like this:

[The First Family watches in horror as Miley Cyrus rapes a teddy bear.]

Malia: [sobbing] Miley? Miley! Why is she rubbing her ass on that teddy bear, dad?

President Obama: Because we have to chase her. Condemn her, set the dogs on her.

Sasha: But she was Hannah Montana.

President Obama: Because she’s the entertainment America deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So, we’ll hunt her, because she can take it. And because daddy has to bomb Syria.

[Fade out as Miley Cyrus trips on her own tongue.]