In Your Face |
 |
by Roger Gray
We Understand the Precise German Translation of “Chrysler” is “Enron!”
We talked last month about Ken Lay, the captain of the Enron Valdez, and his “generous” refusal of an exorbitant severance package. Given subsequent events – the mass layoffs, the refusal to let employees sell off 401K investments in his corporate Hindenburg and his stiffing of congressional oversight committees – we hear an unconfirmed rumor that Ken now only goes out wearing a burka. In his case, we approve.
It Would Have Been Cheaper
Outside of capturing that world-class slime, Osama bin Laden, which is necessary, if we wanted to scare the Taliban out of their burnooses, the solution was simple. Fly an armada of C-130s over Afghanistan, drop every member of the 82nd and 101st Airborne, kidnap every Afghan woman and girl in the country and then ? send them to college.
Of Course, Edward Teller Won’t Complain as Long as We Keep Building the Things
Let me get this straight. GW spent a lot of personal capital trying to woo that walking Sears mannequin, Vladimir Putin, convincing him to come on out to the ranch, chow down on some barbecue, shoot the breeze and, oh yes, get rid of some of his nukes. Having done that, and with Putin heading back home to sell the Duma on this new relationship, GW listens to the unrepentant cold warriors in his White House rugby scrum and decides to spend untold billions on that grandest Reagan folly, Star Wars. Never mind the deficit, the war on terror and the issues of Social Security, Medicare and discounted drugs for seniors. We, by gosh, have to stop the non-existent missiles in the hands of some rogue terrorist, as though an ICBM can be fired by anyone, anywhere like some kind of 10 megaton bottle rocket. And by the way, everyone in Washington, the word is “nuke-lee-er!” If I hear “nucular” one more time, I’m going to buy an SS20 from the Russians and point it at someone myself.
Lee Brown Somnabulates Into Another Term
Our narcoleptic “Mayor of all Houston” Lee P. Brown has done it again. He has swept aside yet another challenge, this time from that energetic political Yorkie Orlando Sanchez. And to Orlando’s credit, it was a near thing. Were it not for a resumé that was seriously deficient in that most crucial of resumé requirements, a work history, we might be calling him “Mr. Mayor” about now. So Lee P. can settle into a comfortable last two years of not weighing in on issue after issue. Hey, we have stadiums. That?s legacy enough.
If We Start Checking Gun Records, Then the Terrorists Have Won
As if the administration didn?t have enough on its plate fighting terrorism, trying to sell a phony economic stimulus package that would have given folks like Enron $254 million, the prospect of the insecticide-impaired Tom DeLay as the face of the Republican House majority (the Democratic Party donation letters will practically write themselves) and a Presidential inbox full of “freedom of information” requests to stonewall, it has the chilling performance of Attorney General John Ashcroft telling one branch of our government to butt out of its oversight function. While lamely defending the hastily conceived military tribunals, which former Nixon speechwriter William Safire has decried as “kangaroo courts,” Ashcroft refused to allow gun purchase records to be checked to see if any potential terrorists are arming themselves legally. Raiding art exhibits in Houston is one thing, but guns are another, apparently. The only thing more inept and frustrating was the performance of his congressional inquisitors. With one eye on presidential approval polls and another on next November, the Democrats choked like Greg Norman at the Masters. And as for Ashcroft, it is clear that Cheney and Rumsfeld should simply handle all administration interviews. At least they didn’t lose a Senate seat to a dead guy.
