February 14, 2000 -

SUCCULENT SOPRANOISM!

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Al makes a happy, or is it gay, sound; we've got Positive Personal Attacks; and then there's the Victim of the Week, Betty Lou.

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Those stories, and more. Now, the details...

NEW YORK -- Completing his transformation from bumpkin baritone to simpering soprano, Algore joined the New York City Gay Men's Chorus in singing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." Observers said Algore made certain his microphone was dead and backed away from it - just in case - before he joined the full- throated throng in song. "The Vice President couldn't hit the high notes," said Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank, adding: "I'll bet he could if I were standing behind him."

Clinton Administration Intellectual Monica Lewinsky said she found the AlGay Chorus breathtaking but believes the Vice President would have been better served by performing a song with a smaller range. "Like, why didn't they, like, do `Blowing In The Wind'?" she, like, asked.

Algore assured the crowd that he supports government funding of the arts because "the arts are like air and water; we need them to live healthy lives." Huh? Does this mean the government can kill us all by not buying any more air and water?

WASHINGTON -- Meanwhile, it was disclosed that Algore changed his answers when he was confronted with documents in the Democratic fund-raising scandal, suggesting he misled himself because he drank too much iced tea. It seems Algore contends the evil right-wing iced-tea cabal overdosed him and he had to go to the bathroom when President FunnyMoney and political aides discussed the sensitive topic of fund-raising telephone calls. That, Algore alleged, explained why he was the only shrub in the White House forest who didn't remember discussing how to illegally raise illegal campaign bucks.

Algore apologist Jesse Jackson leaped to the defense. "This is nothin' but clatter. The bladder doesn't matter," Jackson said. And an Algore campaign spokesman said Republican Newt Gingrich was widely known for leaving the toilet lid up after he drank too much iced tea. "The Republicans don't want to talk about their own indiscretions and illegalities," said Percival P. Prostate.

TOW, Texas -- I recently listened to Algore's plaintive whines about "negative personal attacks" in the presidential campaign and took them to heart. So here I offer some positive personal attacks, free of charge. For Bill Bradley: "You want to end Medicare and Medicaid and take all the food away from elderly people, children and minorities, but you still have one hell of a jump shot." For Algore: "For a pathological liar, you're looking right spiffy in Naomi Wolf's earth tones." For John McCain: "You're running a fraudulent campaign, but nobody bails out of an airplane better than you do." For George W. Bush: "You have come damned close to snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, but you have a cute smirk."

ALBION, New York -- HILLARY!, we have a tip for you. Tip: The First CoverUpper, running for the Senate from New York, demonstrated her caring side by gobbling down a free lunch and then leaving without tipping the waitress, a single mom, who brought her food. Horrid Wolfmann, campaign spokesthing for Mrs. Clinton, said HILLARY! was so engrossed in forgetting "Rodham" and "Clinton" and trying to save the world that she simply forgot to leave a tip. "If you think of it in Clinton terms, HILLARY! did the right thing," Wolfmann said. "The standard tip is 15 percent. The breakfast was free and 15 percent of nothing is still nothing."

WASHINGTON -- Attorney General Janet (Stonewall) Reno leaped into the hacker problem plaguing the Internet's most-active sites, promising the malefactors will be brought to justice. Skeptics might believe that Stonewall doesn't know what "justice" means unless Bill defines it for her, but Democratic insiders say Reno is serious this time. "Ms. Reno put a clandestine operation in motion some while ago when hundreds of people with information about the President's multifarious scandals appeared to flee the country," said Skum Baggerly, a Reno confidante. "What really was going on was the AG was placing people in hacker-prone foreign countries so they can bring these evildoers to justice," Baggerly said, adding: "It's the same message Ms. Reno sent to Ken Starr: `You can run, but you can't hide.'" Baggerly said Ms. Reno was personally peeved by the hack attacks because she lost a bid on a set of silver handcuffs and some leather whips when e-Bay was hacked.

GATESVILLE, Texas -- Our Victim of the Week is Betty Lou Beets, who wants everybody to know about battered women. Don't mistake Betty's mewling about battered women for truth, because Betty Lou is a batterer, not a batteree. The woman the Dallas Morning News describes as a "soft-spoken great-grandmother with hearing aids tucked beneath her gray hair" prospered by murdering insured husbands. No. 5 was found buried near No. 4 in a "wishing well" outside her home, which is not all that far from Gun Barrel City in darkest East Texas. Betty Lou killed No. 5 in 1983 and was unable to murder a No. 6 because she has been in jail. Two of her husbands were shot in the back of the head. Betty Lou, 62, is scheduled to go to that big Divorce Court in the Sky on February 24. She will be the oldest inmate executed by the state of Texas and the third woman put to death in the last 100 years. Cozy up to Beelzebub, Betty Lou. Maybe he'll propose.

QUESTION FOR THE DAY: If you see a bomb technician running like hell, shouldn't you try to keep up?

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