Liftingthefog: Political Humor from Barbara Sehr

Exposing the Foggy Bottom from the Third Rail

Exposing the Foggy Bottom from the Third Rail

"The Bachelor" Meets Axis of Evil Doers

Evening Frown Competition Precursor to Annihilation

In the News

It's Manhattans All Around in New Mexico

Hollywood, CA —Producers of the ABC television show The Bachelor, have agreed to a Public Service initiative from the Bush administration to explain the President's disarmament policies against Iraq and North Korea to the lowest common denominator.

The network will launch a new edition of the "Bachelor" known as The Axis of Evil Doers in which a pair of "aggressors" competes for a full-scale "spanking" from the United States Air Force. "This is a show likely to have more parental warnings than NYPD Blue," a producer revealed.

The "winner" of the competition will face the full force and fury of the world's most powerful military machine and have its country decimated by at least 15 minutes of collateral damage. Ultimately, the United States Treasury, with some help of the ABC network, will be responsible for complete reconstruction of the annihilated country at a cost of billions of dollars. The cost exceeds the current assets of both North Korea and Iraq combined. There are some military analysts who suspect that the costs in dollars and human lives may exceed the amounts spent on the losing effort in Vietnam in the mid-twentieth century.

The network will launch a new edition of the Bachelor known as The Axis of Evil Doers in which a pair of "aggressors" competes for a full-scale "spanking" from the United States Air Force. "This is a show likely to have more parental warnings than NYPD Blue," a producer revealed.

With billions of dollars at stake, not to mention the television rights to cover the war, leaders in both Baghdad and Pyongyang are eager to enter both the evening frown and mass destruction talent competition in their effort to become the amorous targets of brute US military force. "Those Iraqis are just a bumbling shy lot who are afraid to unzip their weapons caches," a spokesperson for North Korean leader Kim Jong-il told reporters in the Bachelor's "green room," as the beauty of the beast competition got underway.

"Caches," we don't need no stinkin' caches," a member of Iraqui's Republican guard protecting Saddam Hussein from the American entertainment press remarked. "North Korea may have whipped out its manhood, but from here it doesn't look like much."

In the first episode of the series, North Korea demonstrated its readiness for conflict by showing off its own nuclear weapon, as weapons inspectors in Baghdad searching for similar effects of weapons surgery in Iraq came up empty. "As far as we can tell, Baghdad has either not been deflowered or it is engaging solely in Clintonesque relations," weapons inspectors reported to UN officials.

Both Iraq and North Korea may face morals issues in the competition rules. The Hussein government in Iraq has been rumored to be slack in its commitment to limiting the spread of weapons of mass destruction. At the same time, the North Koreans have been accused of everything from selling drugs without prescriptions on the Internet to cozying up with Chinese communists.

Las Vegas betting action is said to be siding with Iraq to win the affections of the Bush military machine. Dueling with the Baghdad government has been a Bush family tradition since the senior Bush stopped sending flowers and US missiles to Saddam Hussein after a brief courtship with the Butcher of Baghdad during his CIA Death Alley Days. Representatives of the North Korean government have previously rejected love notes from US representatives while cozying up to romantic interludes with China.

Efforts to demand tough love from North Korea resulted in a three-year standoff in the 1950's that left North Korea without its Seoul, and only a single positive element for America - a long-running television comedy that lasted longer than the conflict itself.

Sources in Baghdad are certain that the Bush administration will elope into conflict with its sexier Republican Guard. "After all we not only have weapons of mass destruction we have chemical weapons that will scare the sensibilities of even a Texas cowboy," an Iraqi government spokesman reported. "We have some nomads in the desert that haven't taken a bath in years!"