February 11, 2002 -

LARRUPING LAWYEROGRAPHY!

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Torts for terrorists; Little Tom; and Unhappy Birthday wishes for Dutch at 91.

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Now, the details...

PHILADELPHIA -- Displaying the level of honor we expect of lawyers, the American Bar Association chose to recommend that foreign terrorists tried in military tribunals get the same rights as Americans. "There is a chance that American captors will serve hot coffee to terrorists and some of them might spill liquid into their laps. We believe even al Qaeda members should have the right to sue McDonald's for a couple of million bucks when and if that happens," said Skumm Baggerley, chairman of an ethics subcommittee of the ABA. Baggerley stressed that each terrorist should be furnished with one law firm.

In other ABA news, sources said the nation's lawyers are preparing to file against the military over use of the shorthand term "Gitmo" to describe the Guantanamo Bay facility in Cuba. "The word `Gitmo' is a trademark of members of the ABA. We use it to describe our claim on the money of non-lawyers. The mo' often we file, the mo' money we git. We gitmo!" Baggerley blustered.

HOLLYWOOD -- Americans have been somewhat fixated on such trivia as war, terror, the Daschle recession and the hunt for Osama bin Laden's cave. But now comes a freelance writer named Daniel Radosh to get us back to the important stuff - such as whether male and female thespians should compete together for "best actor." Radosh says men get "juicier" roles in important movies, while actresses don't. "...the actress races are usually padded out with one or two second-raters," Radosh whines. Hollywood is expected to respond to Radosh's thoughts with remakes of the Lethal Weapon movies - with Goldie Hawn and Julia Roberts taking the roles of Mel Gibson and Danny Glover.

PIERRE, South Dakota -- It's one of those "oops!" moments for Sen. Tom Daschle, South Dakota's most powerful midget Democrat. New York Post columnist Deborah Orin reports that a GOP-sponsored poll in South Dakota shows President Bush would whomp little Tom, 54 to 37 percent, in a presidential matchup. Daschle said Bush is "attempting an Enron endrun" in South Dakota. "When we had an honorable President, such as Bill Clinton, there was none of this politics-of-personal-destruction such as Bush practices," Daschle said. He longs for Clinton's return. "I liked it when the President thought a stimulus package was a fat broad in a short skirt," Daschle said.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Flashing all the class left over from the American Bar Association convention, four House Democrats couldn't bring themselves to wish former President Reagan a happy 91st birthday. They voted "present." Three of the four are members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Those include Edie Bernice Johnson of Texas and California lamebrains Barbara Lee and Diane Watson. Joining them was Rep. Pete Stark, a patented California fool from a coastal district extending from Oakland to San Francisco.

OAKLAND, California -- Brain death appears to be "in" - at least to one soul who writes headlines for Associated Press Web copy. This appeared atop a story about California Rep. Barbara Lee: "Speaking her mind has won Barbara Lee thousands in donations." Rep. Lee's only distinction in Congress has been somewhat marginal: fame brought because she, alone, voted against military retaliation for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "Speaking her mind" also has garnered Lee death threats and loads of hate mail. Insiders report she stopped reading the mail because her lips became fatigued.

TOW, Texas -- Here is a reference the mighty New Dork Times found so intriguing that it was featured in a story about the mammoth bankruptcy filed by Global Crossing. "Among the shareholders of Global Crossing at one point was former President George Bush, who took an $80,000 speaking fee in stock that at the peak was worth $14 million. It is not known when, or if, he sold his position." Here is a paragraph from a Global Crossing story as published in the Washington Times: "One prominent investor in Global Crossing was Terry McAuliffe, chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He parlayed a $100,000 exclusive investment in the start-up firm in 1997 into an $18 million fortune when he cashed in his shares in the late 1990s, according to Worth magazine."

WASHINGTON -- The hoary Associated Press learned that its primary source for a phony Korean War story has been brought up on federal charges of bilking the Veterans Affairs Department out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Edward Lee Daily of Clarksville, Tennessee, told AP he was a key player in a massacre of hundreds of civilians at a place called No Gun Ri. He told the VA he had been wounded in Korea and had been a prisoner of war. One story was about as true as the other - not at all. AP is expected to keep a death grip on the fraudulent Pulitzer Prize it won for its "expose" of the atrocity that never happened.

LONDON -- Famed American nutball Norman Mailer finds American patriotism somewhat sickening. "What happened on Sept. 11 was horrific, but this patriotic fever can go too far," the 79-year-old writer told Britain's Daily Telegraph.

SOUTH BEND, Indiana -- Another gun story with a happy ending. A veteran druggie and general no-good named Tony D. Murry was holding a box cutter knife to Sue Gay's neck when Gay's 11-year-old adopted son ran upstairs and grabbed a gun. Murry tried to keep Gay between himself and the boy, but the kid squeezed off one shot, hitting Murry in the chest. He died in a hospital emergency room.

QUESTION FOR THE DAY: Should AP's next account of its discredited Korean-era massacre be known as No Sto Ri?

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