Beating Around the Bush (15 page)

Klondike asked, “If the CIA is so certain there are now weapons of mass destruction, why haven’t they found any?”

“Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice insist they are still there.”

“Has it ever occurred to you that they might know something you don’t know?”

I said, “If they know something I don’t know why don’t they tell me?”

“They have to keep secrets because if the people who are hiding the WMD think we know what they know it will be harder for Don Rumsfeld to find them.”

“The way you talk,” I said, “you are either anti-Bush or a traitor or both.”

Klondike said, “I am just an American who believes our leaders have gone astray and we are paying the price for it. I believe the problem is not what the administration does, but what it says it’s doing.”

“Klondike, I can’t help you if you are not a believer. Somewhere outside of Baghdad there is a nuclear bomb with your name on it.”

He said, “Speaking of nuclear bombs, why did the CIA report that Iraq bought uranium from Niger when it wasn’t true?”

“Cheney said it was true. When Ambassador Joseph Wilson said it wasn’t true someone leaked the name of his wife, who was in the CIA. That someone leaked it to Robert Novak. I know Robert Novak, and the only reason he printed her name is that Bob is a patriot first and a newspaper columnist second.”

“Why is the CIA so determined to find out who leaked the information to Novak?” Klondike wanted to know.

“It takes the weapons of mass destruction issue off the front pages and forces Attorney General Ashcroft to bow out because he may know who the leaker is.”

Klondike said, “Nothing is simple in Washington if you question it. What about former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neill?”

“What about him?”

“He said Bush wanted to attack Iraq even before the CIA told him it was a good idea.”

“We only have O’Neill’s word on this,” I said. “Wait until Dick Cheney writes his book, then we will really know what took place in those cabinet meetings.”

Klondike asked, “Do you think the public is confused by all this?”

“Not if they believe that the CIA never makes mistakes.”

EVERYONE TOOK what he or she wanted from the president’s State of the Union speech. My ears pricked up when he talked about steroids. He was obviously against them. How, I wondered, did steroids get into the president’s speech?

Here is one version. The president was reading the sports pages about all the drugs that athletes are using. It suddenly dawned on him that there was no mention of steroids in his State of the Union speech. He called in his writers and said, “ Why is there no mention of steroids in my speech?”

“We were saving it for the opening of the summer Olympics.”

“I want to mention it now before the Democrats do.”

A speechwriter said, “If we talk about steroids people will forget about the unemployment figures.”

Another writer said, “Why don’t you say, ‘When I was governor of Texas I was a 140-pound weakling. Everyone was pushing me around. Then I started using steroids and lifting weights. In no time the muscles in my arms expanded and I weighed 200 pounds.’”

Bush said, “I don’t want anyone to think steroids had anything to do with my winning the election in Florida.”

The writer said, “And then, Mr. President, you can say, ‘If the Democrats push me around I’ll give them a poke in the nose they will never forget.’ That should please the conservatives.”

“The question is,” the president said, “am I for steroids or against them?”

The first writer said, “We better call in Karl Rove.”

Rove came in and Bush said, “Karl, where do I stand on steroids?”

Rove looked in his black election book and then said, “The pollsters don’t consider steroids a big election issue. People say they are more interested in jobs than in athletes who take body-building drugs.”

The president said, “Then should I come out against them in my State of the Union speech?”

Rove said, “It can’t hurt. You may lose the baseball player vote, but you will keep the golfer vote.”

The president asked, “Who should sit next to Mrs. Bush in the balcony?”

A writer said, “Rush Limbaugh. And on her other side a professional football player who has been rehabilitated at Betty Ford’s.”

Karl Rove said, “Keep it simple. Appeal to children who watch sporting events on TV and don’t see anything wrong with a hockey player improving his game.”

“Do we have a letter I can read from an eleven-year-old child who thanks me for my message about steroids?” Bush asked.

“I am sure there is one,” the writer replied. “I know we have hundreds about Pete Rose getting in the Hall of Fame.”

“Should we also warn the kids against gambling?” the other writer asked.

Rove replied, “We better not. Bill Bennett may think we are talking about him.”

The president said, “To make sure people know I mean business I want everyone in my administration to take a drug test. I’ll take it out of our Homeland Security budget.”

Rove said, “You come up with all the good ideas, Mr. President.”

A writer agreed, “It will bring the Republicans to their feet.”

NINETY MILLION PEOPLE watched the
Super Bowl
, and every one of them claimed he or she saw Janet Jackson’s dance number.

Of the 90 million, 89,995,000 were outraged and demanded to know what the FCC was going to do about it.

But it wasn’t really Janet Jackson who started the ball rolling. It really started when the singer Bono said “F—brilliant!” on the
2003 Golden Globe Awards Show
. (Unlike television this is a family newspaper so I cannot use the real word in this column.)

Since the Golden Globes is a NBC network show, the FCC held a hearing, and against Chairman Michael Powell’s wishes, said NBC could not be fined because Bono used the “F” word as an adjective, not as a noun or a verb.

Now here is the problem. The networks may not use cuss words on the air, but if you click to cable you can hear any forbidden phrase in the English language.

Larry David’s
Curb Your Enthusiasm
is chock full indecent
phrases.
The Sopranos
on HBO tells you what life in New Jersey is really like. George Carlin and Dennis Miller need the expletives to get their laughs.

What has happened lately is women are using the F-word more than ever. Just watch
Sex and the City
.

On some shows the obscene words have become a mantra. Although network TV and radio are monitored carefully by the FCC, cable gets a free ride because people pay for it. The First Amendment protects what you hear on cable TV.

Cable TV has been a boon for writers because the F-word has made it easier for them to write a script. Every time one of the characters has nothing to say the writer gives them a cuss word.

The FCC ruled, with Powell in the minority, that it is all right to use the F-word as long as it doesn’t describe a sexual act.

Some people ask, “Why do the cable TV shows allow this kind of language on the air?”

The answer is they are appealing to the 18-to-35-year-old age group—the people the advertisers will kill for.

The fact that children and senior citizens are exposed to the curse words is unavoidable.

The cable stations maintain the kids don’t learn the naughty language from their programs. A spokesman said, “They learn it from each other. Even in my house my daughter uses the F-word. I asked her where she learned it and she said from her sixteen-year-old brother in the basement. A study shows that underprivileged children who come from homes without cable TV use profanity as much as those whose parents are cable subscribers. The law is very clear about obscenity. You know it when you hear it.”

Several organizations are in opposition to the expletives on TV and are fighting it. They have a lobbying group in Washington. The problem is most politicians use bad language, particularly during an election year. So where does that leave the rest of us who use it only when angry or frustrated?

I use it sparingly. For example if another car tries to pass me on the road I yell out the window, “*&^%$#c!”

Or if I get a junk telephone call I might retort, “@#$%^ you!” I have to be honest. I used it while watching the State of the Union speech. But it was no big deal. This is still a free country.

When Hollywood is making a war movie every soldier in the picture has to precede a sentence by using a curse word.

That’s all I have to say on the subject. Remember, if you use the F-word, only use it as an adjective and never a noun.

THE THING SUPREME COURT Justice Antonin Scalia and Vice President Dick Cheney have in common is they both love to shoot ducks.

There’s nothing wrong with that, right? The only thing the anti-duck hunters object to is that Justice Scalia agreed to hear a case in which Cheney was a defendant.

You have to put this in perspective. The Supreme Court hearing had nothing to do with shooting fowl and Scalia refused to recuse himself (bow out) from the cases, saying one thing had nothing to do with the other.

Based on what he said, I imagined what was going on in the duck blind. Both men are knee deep in the marsh wearing camouflage suits.

Bang, bang.

“Good shot, Dick. I think you got one.”

“Go ahead, Tony. They will be taking to the air any moment.”

“Who put out the duck decoys?”

“The Secret Service. They have been working all night. It’s part of Homeland Security.”

“That is a beautiful duck call—almost like the real thing.”

“That’s Don Rumsfeld. He is a master duck caller. He was very flattered that I invited him instead of Colin Powell.”

A few minutes later dozens of mallards settled amongst the decoys.

Bang. Bang.

“Dick, ain’t this fun? Nothing makes you forget the Constitution better than holding a good shotgun in your hands. Where did you get yours?”

“From Halliburton. It was a goodbye gift. Anything going on at the court I should know about?”

“I can’t talk about it, Dick, but let’s say we have all our ducks in a row.”

Cheney laughed. “Then could you say it’s duck soup?”

Bang. Bang.

Scalia hit two more birds and said to Cheney, “I’m glad I voted for ducks to get the death penalty.”

“Who are you going to give your ducks to?”

“The Supreme Court dining room chef. The members of the court are tired of pizza and will welcome duck l’orange on the menu. The key to a Supreme Court Justice’s decision is through his stomach.”

“Do you think the media will give you a bad time for hunting with me?”

“They wouldn’t dare. We’re friends, and we were friends long before your case was put on the docket. If they ask me why I haven’t recused myself I’ll say, ‘The court never discusses why a member thinks the way he does.’”

Bang! Bang!

“Tony, I feel the same way. If I thought you had a conflict by hearing my case I would tell you so.”

“I know you would, Dick. You know what? I will bring back ducks for Clarence Thomas, William Rehnquist, Anthony Kennedy, and Sandra Day O’Connor. I know she likes duck and she could be the swing vote.”

Just then a dog came out of the marsh holding a duck in his mouth.

Scalia said, “What a smart retriever. Where did you find him?”

Cheney said, “He is the president’s dog. He loaned me Barney for the week.”

Both men heard Rumsfeld’s duck call in the distance, “Onk, onk. Onk, onk.”

THE CONTROVERSY OVER who should be allowed to marry and who shouldn’t couldn’t have come at a worse time. It reached its pinnacle the same week the Mattel Toy Company announced that after all these years Barbie and Ken are splitting up.

“Why?” asked Ethel Brooks, who has been collecting Barbie dolls since she was ten years old.

“It’s a tough question,” I said. “Marriages go stale and Ken was going through a midlife crisis.”

“Was there another woman?”

“The gossip is that he was fooling around with Midge. Barbie got mad and started dating G.I. Joe,” I replied.

“One of the things I heard,” Ethel said, “is that Barbie went on the Atkins diet and was miserable.”

“Could be,” I said.

“I heard at the hairdresser’s that Barbie took up with a young man half her age like Demi Moore did.” Ethel continued, “The girls said she called him her Toy Boy.”

“Women do that all the time. Bush has never mentioned anything about older women and younger men when referring to marriage.”

“Barbie is not gay, is she?” Ethel wanted know.

“No. She showed up at City Hall in San Francisco to protest the ban on gay marriages. People want a constitutional amendment defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman.”

Ethel said, “Half the country’s marriages end up in divorce. Why don’t they have a constitutional amendment for divorced people?”

I said, “Because President Bush doesn’t believe in divorce. He sees the family as four people gathered around the fireplace, watching Fox television.”

“Now that she has split with Ken, does she have to find a job?”

“Yes. The problem is that there are no jobs, especially for single women.”

Ethel said, “Of course Barbie will keep all her clothes.”

“Of course. What would Ken do with them? But they are going
to have to divvy up the rest of the stuff—the house, the Volvo, the TV set. If they are smart they will each get a lawyer.”

Ethel said, “The split is going to get expensive. The only ones who profit from a couple getting a divorce are the lawyers.”

“Despite all the fuss, Ken was a beach bum and then a ski bum. This attracted Barbie to him, but after a while she wanted a solid guy. This happens as time goes by. After awhile who cares what a hunk in a bathing suit looks like?”