Month: June 2004

Christ, God’s a busy sumbitch, so please forgive Him for neglecting His editorial duties here at low culture for the past several months. When He was last made available to us to proffer his eminent Smite List, things were going quite poorly in Iraq, there were genocidal concerns in Sudan, and Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry had failed to establish a concrete position on the United States’ role in international and domestic affairs.
Thankfully, things have changed for the better since then, and now that his Son has become a major box office draw, and continues to command the interest of the electoral masses as his Holy Vessel (Catholic Division®) is paid visits by the American President, God has more time for Himself with which to erupt and set forth His metaphorical Vesuvius.
Hear ye, cretins, this be the word of God!
Thee Who Shalt be Smitten (on this, the Third Day)
penned by He who remains embedded in the Pledge of Allegiance
1. Vice President Dick Cheney: Richard, my forsaken son, you have lied in my name time and again, and I have turned a blind eye. I even hoped you’d have taken the hint regarding this matter when I made clear that there has never been worthwhile evidence for your conflation of the al Qaeda operation and Saddam’s regime. But then, just yesterday (many months, if not years, after I dispelled this nonsense, or thought I had), you lied again, in public, to actual, living people, and said, regarding Saddam, “He had long established ties with al Qaeda.” Richard, this was June 14, 2004, and you said this in the context of a campaign speech. In keeping with this insouciance, Richard, I condemn thee to an eternity of being bound and tied to Osama bin Laden, once I find him.
2. Sec. of Defense Donald Rumsfeld: Seriously, Donald, though you rarely, if ever, invoke me by name, I’m nonetheless sick to fucking death of these needless wars you’ve embarked my people upon. And your title! You’re like the Secretary of War, with Ridge more appropriately staffing the Defense position. Come the fuck on. After the photos of torture in Abu Ghraib and other anonymous leaks that I brought to my good friend Sy Hersh (while wrapped in angel feathers and standing atop a fire-borne chariot so as to not draw attention to myself amidst the melee that is Washington), I was certain you’d resign, or perhaps be fired, the latter of which would have allowed you and your family to partake of six months of unemployment checks. Instead, despite your superbness, I shall have to smite thee.
3. Sec. of State Colin Powell: Come on, Colin, I’ve sat on my jewel-bedecked couch with bated breath (and quills in hand) on many occasions over the past months, confident you’d come forth and spill those secrets about the Bush Administration’s dishonest and criminal behavior that only you, me, and your bosses know about, but since it would be considered bad form for me to use Richard Clarke and Paul O’Neill as mouthpieces yet again to get this information out (though I did enjoy it the first two times, I must admit), I’d been relying on your supposed conscience to take care of things. Alas, you’ve proven yourself to be quite the noble tool, subtly implying that you’ll be leaving the Administration next year, but not going so far as to give American voters reason to force this process upon you, say, were they to vote your boss out of office this fall due to information you might have shared with the populace. So noble, you simpering coward.
4. Insurgents, Terrorists, Fedayeen et al: I’ve said this before, chumps, but cut this shit out, and I mean it this time. You’re not just taking out contractors and soldiers who are a part of the Occupying Powers, you’re harming innocent civilians, too, which doesn’t make you any better than the American armed forces who drop bombs on wedding parties or whatnot and then try to justify it post-haste. Regardless, I’m going to have to force the whole lot of you to consort for time immemorial with my boy Richard, mentioned above.
5. Kevin Shields: Hey, I like discordant music, OK? A deity can only listen to well-tuned harps for so long, and as I fear that Armageddon approacheth, I would hope that you would hurry up with those My Bloody Valentine rarity box sets you’ve been promising fans for some time now. Their having to wait until 2005 or 2006 is inexcusable, however. I understand that I could remedy this myself through various means, of course, but after my experience with the years-in-the-making — but nonetheless rushed-feeling — New Order Retro box set, I learned it was best to stay out of such things. Creative genius does not come from above, contrary to conventional wisdom or whatever you may have learned from Grammy acceptance speeches.
6. President Ronald Reagan: What, am I missing something here? Why are you looking at me like that?

After last week’s embarrassing revelations by the U.S. State Department that key data had been “creatively” edited out of a year-end report that claimed to document the “success” of the War on Terror (which, had the data been included, would have instead conveyed a sharp rise in terror-related attacks), fans of terror-themed prosecutions can rest assured that Ashcroft and Co. are back in business with yesterday’s announcement of the indictment of Nuradin M. Abdi, 32, in Columbus, Ohio.
The Somali native, according to the FBI’s Cincinnati office, allegedly planned to blow up an unspecified Columbus-area shopping mall, and has thus been charged with misusing immigration documents, fraud, and supporting terrorist activity. Furthermore, according to WABC-TV in New York,

Authorities say they have linked Abdi with Iyman Faris who is a convicted Al-Qaeda member who tried to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge.
The details of this alleged plot are being kept secret. In fact, investigators say plans to blow up a Columbus mall were in their earliest stage. They have also acknowledged they have found no bomb making materials and they don’t have evidence to prove Abdi actually went for any terrorist training in Ethiopia.

Well, that’s comforting, particularly in the wake of the FBI’s resounding success in prosecuting University of Buffalo art professor Steve Kurtz, whose work as an artist explores the politics of biotechnology, for violating the USA PATRIOT act, and Brandon Mayfield, the lawyer in Oregon who had been arrested for his supposed involvement in the Madrid commuter train bombings earlier this spring, after his fingerprints allegedly (and, more significantly, only fleetingly) matched up with those found on a bag used in connection with the attacks.
With those feats of idiocy in mind, it’s likely that the FBI’s evidence in the mall-bombing case likely consists of some nonsense akin to the following, e.g., this hypothetical letter to home:

Cousin Akbar! I am missing you and the family very much, but I am liking America. I am making friends, and I am even learning to speak the cool vernacular. For instance, I played miniature golf, which was quite dope. I am also planning to blow up the spot later this week at the mall…It will be hot! Smoking, even!

Through the benefit of fine films such as Journeys with George, it’s long been established that our current President is a jocular, fun-loving guy. We’ve even paid tribute to his chummy tenor ourselves on a few occasions using our tried-and-true Scientific Joke Assessment methodology. However, bestowing nicknames like “Scrappy” or “Shruggy” or whatnot on White House press correspondents or members of your cabinet only goes so far, and at some point a truly engaging president must rely on clever speechwriters to amuse a crowd.
Let’s get going, then. To wit, here are the opening quips from Bush 43’s remarks at his father’s 80th birthday tribute event this weekend.

“Thank you all. As you can see, I have been given the high honor to represent my three brothers, my sister, and our respective families at the 80th birthday party for our dad, our Gampy.”

OK, not a bad start. Cute, even. It cuts to the point, with the inclusion of “Gampy” gently invoking a bit of familial interplay. The president continues,

“You’re probably wondering how I got to be the family spokesman. (Laughter.)”

Again, pretty funny, all thins considered. He’s riffing on the fact that he’s the sitting President of the United States — the most powerful man in the world — and his father’s eldest son. It also bears noting that one of his brothers is merely a governor of some state that juts off from the continental United States, while another brother is an established crook and scam artist from the savings and loan bailouts of the late ’80s and early ’90s. Much like the “Gampy” line above, he’s delicately playing on issues of love and familiarity in a larger, broader context. Continuing,

“Well, we polled the family. And rumor has it, somewhere in our large family, the tiebreaking vote for tonight’s speaker was cast by a fourth cousin by the name of Chad. (Laughter and applause.)”

Hmm. Well, OK, we’ll give him this one as an act of good faith. He’s using the family angle again, which is good, given the setting, though obliquely embarking on this “Chad” tangent may be a bit dicey. After all, it’s not really relevant to his father’s 80th birthday in any direct form, and it seems ill-advised to reference an issue that many people consider a black mark upon his own supposed presidency, that is to say, that whole Katherine Harris/Jeb Bush/illegal removal of thousands of black voters from the election rolls fiasco. But, yeah, we’ll concede the point here. Seriously, it’s at least partially clever to go out and make up a fictitious family member in the act of telling a good joke. Continuing, then,

“While holding his son above the crib, Chad’s father reports that the lad burped, and it sounded like, “George W.” (Laughter.)”

Umm, yeah, he’s treading into some poorly-considered territory here. The recount joke/fictitious family member’s role has been elongated an extra beat, but now with the addition of a semi-juvenile burping gag. Ugh. Continuing, and really, maybe, he shouldn’t,

“Once again, my life was affected by a dangling chad. (Laughter and applause.)”

Oh, fuck! He actually did it! He went back and more or less made stark the otherwise subtler implications of his earlier lines. At this point, it’s a wonder he actually moved on in the speech and began to speak about the funeral for his surrogate papa, Ronald Reagan, rather than continue with even more painfully drawn-out jokes about the fictitious baby in the crib also being named Chad, just like his father, and having the cutest dimples this side of the twins’ baby photos, ad infinitum.
Here’s to you up in heaven, ol’ cowboy…Thank you, Ronnie, for enabling us to be spared any jokes about Jews for Buchanan.
RELATED: About.com’s Florida Recount Jokes website

From the White House’s Fighting Corruption Fact Sheet: Fighting Corruption and Improving Transparency from the G-8 summit last week, dated June 10, 2004:

U.S. Actions: The U.S. has taken the lead in the global fight against corruption. On January 12, 2004, President Bush issued a proclamation to deny entry into the United States of corrupt foreign officials, their dependents, and those who corrupt them. The U.S. also led international efforts to gain agreement on the U.N. Convention Against Corruption.

From White House Officials and Cheney Aide Approved Halliburton Contract in Iraq, Pentagon Says, the New York Times, June 14, 2004:

“In the fall of 2002, in the preparations for possible war with Iraq, the Pentagon sought and received the assent of senior Bush administration officials, including the vice president’s chief of staff, before hiring the Halliburton Company to develop secret plans for restoring Iraq’s oil facilities, Pentagon officials have told Congressional investigators.
The newly disclosed details about Pentagon contracting do not suggest improper political pressures to direct business to Halliburton, the Houston-based company that Vice President Dick Cheney once led.
But they raise questions about assertions by Mr. Cheney and other administration officials that he knew nothing in advance of the Halliburton contracts and that the decisions were made by career procurement specialists, without involvement by senior political appointees.”