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Quips & Comments 2-28-02 Thursday, February 28, 2002

by Barry Crimmins

Disneyworld has developed a robotic replica of George W. Bush for its Hall of Presidents. The first several prototypes were deemed too lifelike to accurately portray the court-appointed prez but everyone now agrees the latest edition is nearly as wooden and vapid as genuine article.

It took great craftsmanship to get a robot's eyes that close together.

Pull its string and it says 'Axis of Evil,' ' With us or against us' and 'I'm gonna tell my daddy!'

No detail was overlooked by Disney. If there's a terrorist attack anywhere within several hundred miles of the Orlando theme park, the Bush robot immediately departs Florida for an undisclosed location in Nebraska.

To add Florida flavor, the entire Bush display is made of recycled, uncounted ballots for Al Gore.

David Frum, author of Bush's idiotic "Axis of Evil" phrase in the State of the Union address, has left his job at the White House saying, "I began thinking he would be a good president, but I go thinking he's proven himself to be one of the great presidents of American history." It's quite impressive that even though he was busy making the transition to private life, Frum found a way to out-stupid his "Axis of Evil" remark.

Frum will soon find work punching up Ann Coulter's speeches.

The Court-appointed Bush Administration is an oil slick on the slippery slope to fascism.

Ray Brent Marsh, the operator of Georgia's infamous Tri-State Crematory, is planning a new life once he has cleared up his current difficulties. "I'm taking a job with Arthur Andersen. An Andersen recruiter told me that someone who could hide that many skeletons, for that long, was always welcome in their firm," says Marsh.

When former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling told a Senate Enron hearing again and again, "I am not an accountant" what he wanted us to hear was "I am not accountable."

Skilling was asked what he would say to employees who had their life savings wiped out by Enron chicanery. He replied,  "I don't know what to say to the employees." Fortunately he doesn't have to say anything since the $66 million worth of Enron stock he cashed in before the company collapsed buys a lot of attack dogs, moats and armed guards to insulate him from the people he helped destroy.

You needn't be an accountant to tally 66 million reasons why Skilling is accountable.

Skilling said he left Enron  because, "I was flat-out tired."  That is quite believable -- looting is wearisome work.


Let's hope Jeff  Skilling's combative attitude serves him well when the other prisoners challenge him.

Defense Secretary Rumsfeld disbanded the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Influence which would have been used to plant misleading stories in the international press. Rumsfeld explained, "During this time of  fiscal austerity we thought it better to just use traditional conduits for lying, like the Pentagon Office of Public Affairs or my mouth."

"The office is done," Secretary Rumsfeld told reporters. "What do you want, blood?" Then Rumsfeld gestured at the journalists with blood-covered hands to indicate he always had a plentiful supply.

New York Governor George Pataki has ordered the state to restrict information available on the Internet  so that sensitive material doesn't fall into the hands of terrorists. For example, details of New York's Draconian state prison system are being removed  because if terrorists had a blueprint for that kind of massive human rights offense, one shudders to consider what they'd do with it . A federal lawsuit charges America Online billed thousands of its customers for merchandise they never ordered. This presages a larger suit on the part of several million users that AOL has duped into believing they have a legitimate Internet interface.

After Court-appointed President Bush proposed to increase the work requirements for welfare recipients he left for a vacation at his Texas ranch or Camp David or Jackson Hole or Florida or somewhere. Forcing poor people into indentured servitude wears a man out.

The US and Colombian military are doing all they can to assist paramilitary death squads in the elimination of guerillas and anyone suspected of sympathy for the rebel cause. It's nice to see Bush's War on Terrorism is active in this hemisphere.

Anyone who watched the Super Bowl knows that all drug traffickers are opponents of the USA who spend all their spare time wiping out innocent families in Colombia. But wait, the Colombian paramilitarists are allied with the USA, they deal drugs and they wipe out innocent families all the time. Does this mean we can't believe everything we see on the Super Bowl?

Ariel Sharon wants to build up a buffer zone around Israeli settlements and you just know he wants to use Palestinian bodies as insulation.

Who cares about war or Enron or the assault on the Bill of Rights? There is only one story of significance to the media this week--  the all-important Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. How much time will be devoted to repartee between male and female anchors exchanging sexually retarded comments about women in bathing suits? How many more years can this be a matter of huffy-puffy focus? How completely impertinent and embarrassing will it get before someone finally says, "Anywhere you turn there are countless chances to ogle women, whether on TV, in magazines or in person. Christ, the E network shows more skin during a test of the Emergency Broadcast System. Could we please stop wasting time with this inane annual event? Could we please grow up?

Of course we can't, but I just thought I'd ask.

2002 Barry Crimmins