May 5, 2004 -

LUGUBRIOUS LIAROGRAPHY!

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Bill's back. (His lips were moving, so we know he was lying.)

This is a toughie. Should we believe George W. Bush, or former President Bill Clinton? It seems that President Bush told the 9/11 busybodies that Clinton made scant, if any, mention of Osama bin Laden during the transition from Arkie Scum to Texas Folk. Clinton, of course, has discovered terrorism now that he has no responsibility for fighting it. Clinton told the 9/11 commission that bin Laden and Al Qaeda were the No. 1 problem the new administration would face.

A definitive book on terror and 9/11 is "Why America Slept," by Gerald Posner. Posner quotes former Clinton fink Dick Morris thusly: "You could talk to him (Clinton) about income redistribution and he would talk to you for hours and hours. Talk to him about terrorism, and all you'd get was a series of grunts." Maybe this all boils down to a Clintonism. It depends on what your definition of "grunts" is.

Those pictures of allegedly tortured Iraqi prisoners are disgusting. Not the art we'd like to hang in the hall. Agreed that it's not nice for American soldiers to do bad things to prisoners. However, the asserted abuse was psychological – not physical. One of the American jailers pictured laughing at the naked Iraqis is a woman who would likely have to eat three pizzas to get to 105 pounds.

But we read that Arabs everywhere are madder than Osama bin Laden waking up in a kosher nudist colony at a pig farm. Pardon me if I defer getting "enraged" at the treatment of these poor Iraqis for a while. I'll get a tad angry at the Americans when Arabs as a whole admit to being just a wee bit hacked over the 3,000 people who died in the World Trade Center buildings and the Pentagon. I'll become nettled about the poor Iraqis when al Jazeera broadcasts videotape of Palestinians, screaming and demonstrating against the latest suicide bombing of Israeli civilians. I'll get to "hacked" when Iraqis bring vigilante justice to those "freedom fighters" who assassinated four American contractors and defiled their bodies in unspeakable ways. There could be a time when Americans should get angry over treatment of Iraqi scum, but that time hasn't yet dawned.

In short, it appears that a lot of Arabs are mad – not angry. (There is a difference.)

Comes word that political correctness has overtaken yet another perfectly good phrase. "Idiot savant" perfectly described people with autism or some other mental disabilities who were exceptionally gifted in a specialized field. A popular example would be the "Rainman" character portrayed by Dustin Hoffman in the movie, Rainman. An Internet wordsmithery site tells us that idiot savant is "now outdated." Wordsmith.com wrote: "Autistic savant is the current term." Sorry, all you idiots and savants (the term is from the French, literally meaning "learned idiot") but I'll stick with the old definition. It was descriptive, not derogatory. We lost "gay" without putting up a fight. We stood by when "manic depressive" people became those with "bipolar mood disorder," all secretaries became "executive assistants" and the knee-biters among us lobbied to be known as "vertically challenged."

Enough, awreddy!

An investment group headed by former Vice President Algore plans to launch a news network. The new network has not yet chosen a name, but sources indicate two finalists are "Dork TV" and "Al Jazeera."

ABC's Ted Koppel, the 21st Century's best approximation of Alfred E. Newman, read the names of American soldiers killed in Iraq. Funny, but Ted, a Brit, has never devoted a program to reading the names of the 3,000 people who died in the September 11th slaughter. Ted didn't read the names of Americans killed while freeing Afghanistan from al Qaeda. Ted needs to take the residue of his $6 million a year salary and go back to England. Or Belgium. Or France. We can grow our own fools. We don't need imports.

My favorite quote from the recent Pro-Abortion Rally came from California Airhead Congresswoman Maxine Waters, D-Twilight Zone, who said: "I have to march because my mother could not have an abortion." It's difficult to agree with Maxine Waters, since Ms. Waters is one of those people who could not be described if the word "nutcase" weren't in the lexicon. It's almost humiliating to agree with someone who is so eminently disagreeable, but I must admit that I do. I join Maxine in regretting that her mother didn't have an abortion.

There are some correction items that require no comment. Here's one:

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - In stories April 26, 27 and 28 about a high school student whose campaign posters for student body president were removed for referring to his homosexuality, The Associated Press erroneously reported one slogan. The poster read "Queer Eye for Hunt High," not "Queer Guy for Hunt High."

QUESTION FOR THE DAY: If Algore's news channel is carried in Florida, how many Democrats will be bright enough to tune it in?