War hero attacked by war zero

By John Breneman
Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry came under enemy fire from Vice President Dick Cheney, who unleashed a brazen daylight assault on the status of the war hero's medals.

Cheney counted on the element of surprise, knowing that a man who was injured fighting for freedom in Vietnam would never expect to have his Purple Heart attacked by a guy who blatantly ducked the war.

Pundits questioned the strategy of having a war coward question the courage of a war hero, but political psychoanalysts say this is just further evidence that the White House is run by arrogant chickenhawks who think the American people are stupid enough to buy anything they say.

Kerry did not respond by calling Cheney "a stinking load of ass dirt," but he did call upon President Bush to prove that he actually served in the National Guard while hiding from Vietnam. The challenged has renewed questions about whether the president also evaded Boy Scout duty.

In other White House news, the Supreme Court might make Dick Cheney spill the beans about his double-secret energy club. Critics have sued for the release of information, saying Cheney let energy companies and other big campaign donors help draft energy policy designed to line their pockets.

Fortunately Cheney's hunting pal, Justice Antonin Scalia, has refused to recuse himself from the case. No word on whether Scalia plans to brandish his duck rifle to defend Cheney's right to screw the public in private.

Finally, Cheney and his lifelike sidekick, President George W. Bush, spent some of the day getting ready for their joint appearance before the 9/11 commission. Bush sat on Cheney's knee and practiced grinning, while Cheney stuck his meaty paw up the back of Bush's shirt to gain control of his vocal cords.

When asked why the two insist on appearing together before the panel rather than individually, the president said, "Duh. To answer their questions?" (See "Bush in-your-faced the nation")

When asked why he refused to answer the question about why the president and vice president insist on appearing together before the 9/11 panel rather than individually, the president refocused his smirk and said, "Duh. To answer their questions?"

When asked a third time why he was insulting the American people by pretending not to understand a simple question they'd like to hear answered, Bush refocused his smirk and said, "Something will pop into my head."

Environmental retard

By John Breneman

President Bush marked Earth Day by announcing a new environmental initiative with his pal Prince Bandar. Under the plan, Bandar will whack a few pennies from the price of crude if Bush promises to clean up any messes involving the Saudi royal family.

Meanwhile, John Kerry charged that Bush's war on the environment will launch 21 tons more pollution into the atmosphere, trigger millions of asthma attacks and help cause up to 100,000 premature deaths. Kerry said Bush gutted the nation's environmental laws with his own bare hands, raped virgin wetlands and defecated on decades of progress made since the first Earth Day in 1970.

The president, who bombed as an oil company executive, defended his petroleum-based ecological record during an ecosystem-op at a Maine nature preserve. Bush, who at one point seemed to confuse the terms "E. Coli" and "e-cology," made a fake promise to restore and protect 3 million acres of wetlands then relaxed by burning up the waters off Kennebunkport in his dad's cigarette boat.

Asked about the threat of mercury, Bush said his intelligence shows Mercury is not a threat because it has no weapons of mass destruction. He added that if he thought it would buy him a couple thousand votes, he'd pledge to put a man on Mercury by 2006.

Bush explained that environmental protection plays a key role in our economic and political system. By whining for laws regulating pollution, environmentalists spur a multibillion-dollar industry funded by energy lobbyists funneling cash to politicians who will keep the world safe for Arctic degradation.

Critics claim the president, an "environmental retard" who has let corporate super-polluters rewrite the nation's environmental laws, is drooling to drill up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

But Bush countered that opponents of unrestrained drilling are not very patriotic. "We must always take clean air and water for granted," the president concluded, "and stay the course against environmental extremists who threaten our oil supply."

Earth Day 2002: Bush declares War on Environment

President tells nation, 'I'm sure something
will pop into my head'

By John Breneman

Make no mistake. Gathering threat. Must not waver. Stay the course.

His Tuesday night press conference was going along just fine. The president had successfully ducked one question about whether he'd made any "errors in judgment" and dodged another about "personal responsibility for September 11th."

He in-your-faced the nation by playing the dunce, twice, when asked clearly and directly why he and the vice president insist on appearing before the 9/11 Commission together instead of individually.

George W. Bush had wisely chosen to field questions from the East Room of the White House instead of from the deck of an aircraft carrier in front of a giant "Mission Accomplished" banner. And when Uncle Dick picked out the evening's attire, the famous military flightsuit was tucked deep in the White House play closet.

President Bush did not waver from his message while he stayed the course. There was no talk of outsourcing the fighting to India if the violence does not abate.

He even answered a question on the minds of many. "Mr. President, who will we be handing the Iraqi government over to on June 30th?"

BUSH (actual words): "We'll find that out soon. That's what Mr. Brahimi is doing. He's figuring out the nature of the entity we'll be handing sovereignty over."

See, Brahimi is on it. He's gonna let us know. No truth to the rumor Cheney plans to sell the strife-torn nation to Halliburton for an undisclosed sum and some quid pro quo to be named later.

Once the entity is identified and order restored it will be safe to implement the president's time-tested economic development strategy -- distribute generous tax breaks to the rich and open the region to exploitation by corporate friends with addresses in the Bahamas.

Some of the questions were kind of tough but stuff kept coming out of his mouth. "Now is the time and Iraq is the place." And the smirk stayed tucked away, at least until it leaked out when he said the oil revenue stream there is "pretty darn significant."

But trouble loomed ahead, a grave and gathering question. Mr. President: "After 9-11, what would your biggest mistake be … and what lessons have learned from it?"

BUSH (actual words): "I wish you'd have given me this written question ahead of time so I could plan for it. John, I'm sure historians will look back and say, gosh, he could've done it better this way or that way. You know, I just -- I'm sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference, with all the pressure of trying to come up with answer, but it hadn't yet. …"

"I hope -- I don't want to sound like I have made no mistakes. I'm confident I have. I just haven't -- you just put me under the spot here, and maybe I'm not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one."

And don't get him started on those weapons of mass destruction. "They could still be there. They could be hidden, like the 50 tons of mustard gas in a turkey farm," some of Col. Gadhafi's leftovers found in Libya.

Stay the course. Hypothetical linguistic analysis reveals that President Bush favors the word "course" because it subconsciously reminds him of country club living and shooting golf with his dad and that he favors the term "stay the course" because it's stuck in his head from hearing Dana Carvey poke fun at his pop.

"Stay the course" means never having to say you're sorry, never having to answer any question you don't want to.

Stay the course, and you'll probably find those weapons after all. You may even get that parade for the American liberators you promised yourself way back when.

Make no mistake. Gathering threat. Dangerous man. Stay the course?

Easter Bunny held for questioning

By John Breneman

U.S. counter-terrorism officials would neither confirm nor deny that the Easter Bunny is being held for questioning about a clandestine overnight operation that exposed the nation's children to countless tons of teeth-rotting weapons of mass confection on Sunday.

But sources close to the floppy-eared holiday icon claim he is being interrogated in a cramped mesh-bottom cage in Guantanamo Bay. The charges: periodontal terrorism and 52 million counts of contributing to the obesity of a minor.

The alleged incarceration of the Easter Bunny (aka Peter Cotton-Tail) has already become politicized. Critics charge that the Bush administration was slow to guard against the threat that gut-busting quantities of chocolate might be deployed, on a sacred religious holiday no less, despite a March 6 Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) entitled "Easter Bunny determined to strike in U.S."

"We should have been on pastel alert," said White House heckler Adolf W. Bush. "The president should have been more vigilant about the national obesity epidemic that makes our soft underbelly particularly vulnerable to, say, a giant milk chocolate rabbit, fistfuls of jelly beans or a gaggle of glistening marshmallow peeps."

But National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice appeared on Oprah, Regis and Saturday Night Live to defend the president, saying, "No one could have imagined terrorists using candy as a weapon."

Rice admitted there was some heightened chatter in the months leading up to Easter, but most of it non-specific fragments like "Hippity hop bunny trail," "dye, eggs, dye" and "mother of all chocolate Jesuses."

Santa eyed for Cabinet post
Jesus Christ, box-office superstar

By John Breneman

With a comic touch as deft as a Baghdad bombing raid, President Bush reduced the side-splitting Iraq weapons of mass destruction fiasco to a punchline.

The Commander-in-Cheek laughed off the world's concern about non-existent WMDs at the 60th annual Radio & Television Correspondents' Association dinner Wednesday night.

War on Iraq
U.S. death toll: hundreds
Cost: untold billions
Bush's standup routine: priceless.

Too bad the families of soldiers killed in Iraq don't get the joke.

If you missed it, President Bush was showing funny pictures and cracking jokes about them when up popped a photo of him looking under a desk. "Those weapons of mass destruction must be somewhere," quipped the White House wagster. "Nope, no weapons over there … Maybe under here."

The bit unwittingly lampooned Bush's cluelessness that his phony weapons bluster for a war that has now claimed hundreds of U.S. lives might not be the best fodder for cornball humor from a leader regarded in much of the world as a malevolent moron.

Sources say Bush is planning followup jokes about some of his other wacky stunts, like tagging the U.S. Constitution with anti-gay grafitti, giving phony $4 billion cost estimates for the $5.5 billion Medicare bill and sporting a flightsuit for his side-splitting "Mission Accomplished" caper.

"Sheer comic genius," raved the respected comedian Carrot Top, who is helping the president build an arsenal of one-liners and witticisms of mass destruction.

John Kerry, after consulting with political humorist Al Franken, issued a statement calling Bush "a big fat idiot."

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