 Washington
— The buzzards have returned to Hinckley, Ohio, the Easter
candy and gefilte fish is selling for half-price. Fundamentalist
American Christians hope to have Muslims on their knees in exchange
for some faith-based liberation. Monica Lewinsky hopes to have America
on its knees in exchange for still another reality show.
Why is this night different from any other night?
Because after months of war drums beating, and liberties receding,
America gets at least a brief chance to catch up with the latest
kidnappings of glamorous young women worthy of the Larry King treatment.
We want to return to a time of lockboxes, budget surpluses and making
the White House a sex-free zone. We want to return to a time when
we could mourn the demise of the Pets.com sock puppet.
The color has been stripped from our Pleasantville and the world
is returning to normal for everyone — except Saddam Hussein.
Saddam at least was able to get jobs for some of his look-a-likes
with the Bechtel Corp. through a special arrangement with his old
friend Caspar Weinberger. Meanwhile, several million desperately
unemployed Americans are traveling to Iraq in hopes that Saddam
could put in a good word with Weinberger, who had originally set
up Saddam with chemical weapons during the Reagan administration.
Wherever Saddam is these days, he has been warned that if he doesn’t
return his weapons of mass destruction, he will lose his preferred
buyer card at the Defense Contractor’s Warehouse Club.
George W. Bush brags about liberating millions of Iraqis from the
oppression of Saddam Hussein. Meanwhile, America’s million
of unemployed are considering forming their own state and threaten
to use weapons of mass destruction so that they too might profit
from the war of terror like Iraq, if not like Bechtel and Halliburton.
Jobs these days are reserved for the special few. This week, Monica
Lewinsky maxes out her 15 minutes of fame with a reportedly downgraded
version of “Masterpiece” Theatre. Ms. Lewinsky’s
career had been “blowing in the wind,” since her co-starring
role in a late twentieth century drama, which drew more laughs than
a Shakespearian comedy.
Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill Republicans are demanding that weapons
inspectors be sent into the states of Maine and Ohio to consider
the vulnerability of oppressive “moderate” Republicans
in those states who dare to consider reducing George W. Bush’s
“patriotic” tax cuts.” These Senators are doing
as much to help the economy as the French did to end the regime
of Saddam Hussein, “Rep. Thomas Delay noted.
Olympia Snowe, a Republican senator from Maine, was reportedly seen
eating freedom fries in a French Canadian hamburger joint in Old
Orchard Beach. Ohio Republican Senator George Voinovich, meanwhile,
has been spotted in Cleveland with a French horn player, a sure
sign that he may be leaning away from giving rich people as many
tax cuts as they want. “I am a compassionate conservative,”
Voinovich says,” If we don’t allow poor people to eat
once in a while, we may lose some of them and thus have a diminished
tax base.”
“Are there no workhouses?” fired Ari Fleisher, an active
tax cut preservationist. “The poor should know that one day
when they get rich enough to fly on the Concorde, they will appreciate
what the Bush administration has done for them!”
In poor neighborhoods everywhere, there was a resounding Hosanna!
It was as if bank clerk George Bailey had been tapped on the shoulder
by a guardian angel! “I too can be rich?” Bailey asked,
as he was scrubbing the food coloring from an Easter egg coloring
kit that he had been nursing for ten years.
“Yes!” said his imaginary angel. Remember that whenever
Ari Fleisher or George Bush mentions the word ‘poor,’
another terrorist gets his AK/47.”
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