This week, the Bush administration encountered
its greatest challenge since “the president’s weeklong crashcourse
in silverware implementation,” according to an
anonymous White House source. At the onset of this
week, the president was forced to defend his administration
against allegations that a
senior member of his
staff had intentionally
disclosed the identity of
a CIA operative to
members of the press.
In July, when
former Ambassador to
Iraq, Joseph Wilson, an associate to the Clinton
administration and a vocal Bush detractor, revealed that
the White House had concocted a nonexistent connection
between Niger and Iraq’s aspirations to develop weapons
of mass destruction, he attracted a large share of Republican
animosity. White House spokesman Scott McClellan, in
a July briefing on the matter, indicated that “this
administration will not be sidetracked by the truth.
Wilson’s frivolous use of factual information will not go
unchecked.” Shortly thereafter, conservative political
commentator and self-proclaimed child-abuse enthusiast
Bob Novak published a column in which he revealed the
identity of Valerie Plame, Wilson’s wife and an undercover
officer for the CIA. This identity disclosure constitutes a
criminal violation of statutes designed to protect the
personal and professional well-being of intelligence agents
and has placed a considerable amount of pressure on the
White House.
When Wilson, on the advice of attorneys, raised
his case this week, the White House immediately defended
itself by denying the allegations. White House Chief
Advisor Karl Rove rebuffed the accusation that was
specifically aimed in his direction during a Tuesday briefing,
asserting that “leaking information is not really my style.
I’m more of an incidental plane-crash, mysterious
premature heart attack, two bullets in the skull with a
suicide note, accidental drowning in an abandoned reservoir
sort of guy. It’s just so messy when you leave survivors.”
The president bolstered Rove’s remarks in a statement
released to the press on the matter, indicating that “this
administration has never given the press information that
was true in the past. Why would we start now?”
But several members of the press have asserted
that their information came from sources directly within
the White House and that, in fact, said information was
accompanied with motive of “revenge.” By midweek,
the White House was forced to reassess its strategy of
denial. In a Thursday press conference, Karl Rove, faced
with questions over his involvement in the snafu, pointed
to the back of the press room and shouted “what the hell
is that?!” When reporters turned around, he ran screaming
from the room. Our own sources tell us that Rove was
most recently seen huddled naked in the corner of a
Flansing, Oklahoma Marshall’s Department Store, waving
Isotoner driving gloves in the air and shouting vulgarities
at the elderly. Our sources admitted to the possibility
that it may have just been a raving derelict unrelated to the
Bush cabinet but that “it looked a lot like Karl Rove.”
Spokesman McClellan supported Rove’s
comments, explaining that “we now realize that we were
lying at the beginning of the week. So if it’s alright with
you, we’d like to change our story. Ok. So remember the
part where we said we didn’t leak the information to the
press? Now we’d like to change that, to say that we did
it but we don’t think it was technically illegal.” When
asked by a reporter if the administration was concerned
that such flip-flopping could invoke public suspicion,
McClellan explained that “we don’t give the American
public that much credit.”
In light of its new stance, the Bush administration
is readying itself for a full-fledged criminal investigation,
to be undertaken by John Ashcroft’s Justice Department.
Said Ashcroft, a lifelong subscriber to Latex Body Suits
and Cane Beatings Monthly Digest, during a recent press
conference, “we don’t expect to find any wrongdoing
because we’re not actually going to look. Besides, the
Justice Department doesn’t usually handle this type of
thing. We’re much more suited to arresting migrant
Mexican dry-wallers and glass pipe blowers than people
who are actually guilty of crime.”
Though Democrats and a whopping 81% of
Americans, according to a USA Today poll, are demanding
the selection of an independent council to investigate the
matter, President Bush asked reporters sarcastically during
a Friday briefing, “if we had the audacity to block
investigation into September 11th intelligence failings, our
involvement in the Enron scandal and the dunghill of lies
that is the War on Iraq, what in the holy name of Jesus
Christ makes you think we’re going to let it happen with
something this piddling?” Spokesman McClellan
confirmed this official White House stance, reminding
reporters that “most people in this administration have
been accused or convicted of crimes far more heinous than
this one.”
The president joked to members of the press this
week that, “I’ve been arrested on twelve separate occasions
and the hardest time I ever did was at Yale. I had a
roommate that wasn’t into snorting coke and hitting girls.
We had problems from day one.” As to parallels that
many in the press and the public have drawn between this
malfeasance and the Watergate scandal that toppled Nixon
in 1973, McClellan claims that “they are absolutely
baseless. The only thing that this has in common with
Watergate is that we plan to deny the president had any
knowledge of this until it’s clear beyond a reasonable
doubt that he actually ordered the action. Seriously though,
I think you’ll find, if you look carefully enough at the
facts, that this is such a minor infraction when you compare
it to conducting a pre-emptive war on the basis of fabricated
evidence against decree of the international governing body
of the United Nations. Really. That’s much worse.”
With the Democratic primary only two months
away, election season is heating up. So the Bush
administration is seeking to re-emphasize its terrible record
on the economy and its miserable failures in Iraq in order
to draw attention away from the success of its campaign
for vengeance against Wilson and his wife. Vice President
Dick Cheney, in a rare appearance away from the I-Can’t-
Believe-It’s-Not-Butter factory where he spends 22 hours
a day, plugged the president’s agenda during a Chester
County, Pennsylvania fundraiser. Using the recently
released report by weapons expert David Kay, which
revealed that no WMD have yet
been located in Iraq, he assured
that “weapons of mass
destruction will be found in Iraq.
Just as soon as we have the
funding, we’ll start developing
them there and teaching Iraqis
how to use them.”
Though the Bush administration is embroiled in
controversy right now, all eyes are turned to California
this week, as this Tuesday the historic recall election will
go forward. While Governor Gray Davis fights for his
office, front-running contender Arnold Schwarzengger is
fighting off last minute allegations that he has a long history
of sexually harassing women and admiring Adolf Hitler.
Schwarzenegger stated during a Friday press conference
that “this is a confusion of facts by the media. I actually
said that I admire women and that I would like to sexually
harass Adolf Hitler.” Though the swirling debate over
Schwarzengger’s fitness for the office of governor even
caused the California GOP to withdraw its support from
the action film superstar on Friday, his camp remains
unconcerned by the controversy. Dismissing it as preelection
day rhetoric, one supporter excitedly explained
that “this is clearly Arnold’s time in history. For the first
time ever, he’s no more retarded than the president of the
United States.”
And remember, as always, the monkey goes where
the wind blows.

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