June 5, 2000 -

PRIZED PARANOIA!

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AP has a problem; the Big Court does the right thing (barely); and there are swabbies who go "bang."

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

NEW YORK -- Now was that No Gun Ri, or No Sto Ri? Associated Press, the world's largest newsgathering organization, has a problem. AP won the coveted Pulitzer Prize for journalism for a series of stories asserting that American GIs slaughtered hundreds of civilians some 50 years ago at No Gun Ri in Korea. After AP accepted its Pulitzer, the story of No Gun Ri began to fall apart. The keystone source was a headcase named Daily, who said he has been collecting a couple of thousand bucks a month in Korean War "disability" payments because he still hears the screams of the children he and others massacred with machine gun fire. Problem being that Mr. Daily was a mechanic, not a gunner, and wasn't within 100 miles of No Gun Ri when he didn't do the horrible things he didn't do to the civilians who weren't slaughtered by the evil Americans. The journalism community is abuzz with demands that AP give the Pulitzer back. To hell with the Pulitzer. I'd like to see Mr. Daily give the money back.

However, the AP's flawed stories brought to public knowledge the horrifying fact that civilians sometimes are killed in war. President Clinton is expected to push for a five-day waiting period before American GIs fire their weapons in wartime. "We considered requiring Soldier Locks, but the technology isn't there quite yet," said Attorney General Janet (Stonewall) Reno.

LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas -- The Supreme Court teeters on becoming a lost cause, but a recent quickie poll indicates there might yet be hope for the public at large. A Fox News poll sought to establish whether people believe the Internal Revenue Service and the Clinton Administration when they contend that an audit of the tax returns of Juanita Broaddrick is just one of those random things. Mrs. Broaddrick said last year that Bill Clinton raped her in a Little Rock motel room 22 years ago. The IRS made no attempt to rape her through the audit process, until she went public on the Clinton rape accusation. The Fox poll results: 97 percent said the IRS audit is political payback from the Clintonistas, while three percent said it might not be.

BERLIN -- It seems the First Funnyman lost his sense of humor when German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder offered him a box of Cuban cigars during a dinner at an East German restaurant. Former Presidential Humidor Monica Lewinsky said she understood. "He probably would have taken them if I had been there," she said.

WASHINGTON -- There is something wrong when brain death gets four out of five votes before the Supreme Court. The margin was 5-4 when the Big Court decided that a District of Columbia woman had no case. She sued because her 1987 Honda, built before air bags were required, did not have an air bag. She suffered serious head injuries when she crashed the Honda. It would appear that four members of the Supreme Court also suffered brain damage in her car, since they dissented from the majority ruling.

The decision put off, for the time being, plans by Trial Lawyers to sue makers of dental floss on behalf of people who lost their teeth 20 years ago. Also put on the back burner was a lawsuit by President Clinton, who planned to sue California for not requiring that airhead warning labels be affixed to the heads of presidential interns.

LONDON -- Feminists are marshaling their forces to protest economy measures by the British Royal Navy, which now instructs Navy recruits to shout "bang" when they pretend to fire their big guns. The once-mighty Brits say shells for their gunners cost too much, so sailors at gunnery school check coordinates, line up on the target, then yell "bang." Patricia Ireland, head of the National Organization for Prickly Women, believes sailors shouting "bang" is a slander on the sexuality of all women. As for the rest of us, the British play-shooting seems a reminder as to why there was a time when the sun never set on the British Empire. It seems God planned it that way, because the British couldn't be trusted in the dark.

WASHINGTON -- It seems that a healthy tree sometimes grows quite far from the parent nut. Remarks by gun-control opponent Carl T. Rowan Jr. got unexpected notice when a newspaper erroneously credited them to his father, an ultra- liberal columnist. Carl Rowan Sr. got a lifetime appointment to the Hypocrisy Hall of Fame with his unswerving opposition to people owning guns...and then by using an unregistered handgun to shoot a teenager who had the temerity to trespass in his backyard swimming pool.

QUESTION FOR THE DAY: Who is the second most masculine member of the Clinton Cabinet? (After Janet Reno, of course).

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