January 27, 2004 -

BABA IS LISPING INTO OSCUWITY!

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And more. Now, the details...

NEW YORK -- The woman who gave us Wode Wage is leaving weekly television. Baba Wahwah, sometimes known as Barbara Walters, announced she is quitting her wegular co-anchor job on ABC TV's 20-20 and will taper off to five or six news specials a year. Mrs. Wahwah is 74 and has had a stowied career in bwoadcasting. Wecently she interviewed Pwesident Bush at his Texas wanch. She has had sit-downs with chiefs of state. She drew assignments with newsmakers such as nutcase boxer Mike Tyson and his then-wife, Wobin Givens. ABC News executives said they see no weason why 20-20s watings will decline once she wetires.

LONDON -- The British Broadcasting Corporation continues its strange way of reporting. A BBC story this week was headlined "Ousting Saddam `No Cause For War'." The story led with: "A leading human rights group has said the US and UK are wrong to use the toppling of a brutal regime in Baghdad to justify going to war against Iraq." Fair enough. But the next sentence goes this way: "The group, Human Rights Watch asked why George Bush and Tony Blair did not try to remove Saddam Hussein much earlier." So maybe the headline should have been, "Bush, Blair Should have Rushed To War."

With friends like this, Tony Blair doesn't need an enemy.

LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas -- Our favorite impeached President might have been close to the man who invented the Internet, but Algore's technowizardry apparently didn't rub off on Bill. The Clinton Presidential Foundation said the Bill Clinton library will contain Big Bill's entire presidential e-mail file. All both of them. The first e-mail was a test to establish that Bill could find the send key. The second was written to former Ohio Sen. John Glenn on the space shuttle. One school of thought holds that Clinton wanted to know if there was an intern-friendly atmosphere in space. A second believes Clinton told the somewhat-senile Glenn that the shuttle's left-turn blinker had been on since it left earth.

AVOS, Switzerland -- Speakers at the World Economic Forum were invited to say what advice they would give to the next president of the United States. Thierry de Montbrial, head of a Frog policy institute, said, "Listen to others." (Isn't that sweet?) Irene Khan, head of Amnesty International, said, "Look around the world. And remember the impact of your power." No, Irene. YOU look around the world and remember the impact of our power.

NASHUA, New Hampshire -- Former four-star General Wesley Clark took the lead in presidential party paranoia at a candidate debate. Brit Hume of Fox News Channel was a moderator/questioner for the debate and asked Clark when he first realized he was a Democrat. After the debate, Clark said, "I looked at who was asking the questions, and I think that was part of the Republican agenda in the debate." Poh baby. If he can't handle a softball question from Brit Hume, I wonder how he'll do at the U.N?

Clark cemented his standing as a four-star jerk when nutcase filmmaker Michael Moore endorsed Clark and referred to President Bush as a "deserter" while doing so. Asked several days later if it was appropriate for Moore to call Bush a deserter, Clark's mouth turned five-star mushy. He did allow that Michael Moore has a right to free speech. He wouldn't say whether he agreed with Moore's characterization of the commander in chief. Some people wonder why Clark's former military compatriots haven't endorsed him. The Michael Moore affair should answer that. They had to put up with the jerk, but he's out of their hair now. He's got the fealty of Michael Moore and Madonna. That must mean something.

LONDON -- Queen Elizabeth II has made Microsoft founder Bill Gates a Knight of the British Empire, in honor of his entrepreneurial success and the fact that his net worth exceeds that of most Third World countries. Gates-haters expressed hope that the queen's sword will slip during the ceremony and Gates will personally encounter the Blue Screen of Death made familiar by his Windows computer operating systems.

WASHINGTON -- Our fractious fools on the Supreme Court pledge to reconsider whether to abolish the death penalty for the little darlings who were under age 18 when they committed murder. Seventy-three formerly callow youths are under death sentences around the nation for crimes committed when they were 16 or 17 years old. Twenty-six of those are on death row in Texas.

QUESTION FOR THE DAY: Might the Supreme Court want to establish a mininum age for murder victims? That would be nice.