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In the News
Dick Heads Drive
for GOP 2004 |
 The
Bush administration has appointed former New York Times Reporter
Jayson
Blair as its new budget director, replacing the outgoing Mitch Daniels.
“Mr. Blair has an unprecedented background in creativity that this
office demands,” said George W. Bush at a press conference announcing
Blair’s appointment.
Several of Blair’s former New York Times colleagues present
at the Press conference agreed with Bush’s assessment of Blair’s
creative skills. “He fits right in there with the Bush financial
team even though he has no background in crunching numbers. I’m
sure with his experience in dealing with complex New York Times expense
reports, he will be able to grow in the job,” said one New York
Times correspondent who said he would rather stay anonymous.
The appointment was a surprise coming from a chief executive
who had referred to another New York Times reporter, Adam Clymer,
as a “major league asshole,” before the 2000 election. Vice
President Dick Cheney had chimed in, “big time,” at the time.
Cheney said there is no comparison between the two Times reporters.
“While I thought Mr. Clymer’s reporting had an element of
“creativity,” Mr. Blair just knocks imagination out of the
ballpark, Cheney said.
Secretary of State Collin Powell says he would have loved to have Mr.
Blair’s skills available during his pre-Iraq war presentation at
the United Nations where he had to use dull, low-creativity documents
invented by British and American “intelligence” forces. “Some
of Mr. Blair’s recipes for puff pastry in the New York Times are
to journalistically die for, “ Powell noted.
The “Old Gray Lady, “ as the New York Times has become known
over the years, had apparently become disenchanted with its young reporter
who claimed to have studied at the Rupert Murdoch School of Creative Journalism.
No one at the newspaper’s human resources department was aware that
the school advertises a slogan of “we distort, you deny.”
Still, Mr. Blair has apparently learned something from his New York Times
experience. “From here on, we’re going to be more creative
than ever about our budget numbers,” Blair says, “ I say,
if the numbers fit, we print ‘em.”
Mr. Blair says he will try to retain a low profile during his stint as
a Budget Director. He says he will spend a lot of time studying budgets
of different countries to learn more about how to improve the deficit-ridden
budgets amassed during the Bush administration. He says he will make regular
visits to Geneva, Switzerland and Fiji to improve his number crunching
and scuba diving skills respectively.
Blair will also recruit the GOP’s financial and
ethics wizard, William Bennett to update the budget office policy based
on successful financial planning seminars Bennett is hosting in Atlantic
City and Las Vegas. “Bill gives me 100 to 1 odds that our budget
will be back to a surplus in no time, “Blair announced. “He’s
even advised me on finding some “hot” slot machines!”
Blair’s personnel recruitment for the Bush White House apparently
knows no end. He says he will name former Washington Post reporter Janet
Cooke, as the budget office’s press relations person. “When
I interviewed Janet, she told this great Pulitzer Prize-level story about
a boy named “Jimmy,” Blair said. “It brought me to tears,
and I bet with that kind of journalistic skill, she will bring tears to
the eyes of everyone who reads a Bush administration budget report.
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