Political Satire/Commentary -- Daily Updates at PoliSat.Com TM © since 1999

·support our troops, support Bush, support Cheney, support victory in Iraq, support victory in Afghanistan, Clinton Liebrary, http://PoliSat.Com , PoliSatDOTcom, Salute America's Heroes, Fallen Heroes Fund, oppose Gore's Global Warming theory, support milblogs, Michael Yon, Pat Dollard, BlackFive, MilBlogs, MilBlogging, Michael Yon, Mudville Gazette, HotAir.Com, JawaReport, PajamasMedia , VictoryCaucus , VetsForFreedom , FreedomsWatch , DayByDayCartoon , WrennCom.Com , Video , Political Satire, Politics, News, oppose MoveOn.Org, oppose Code Pink, oppose DailyKos, oppose ANSWER, support PoliSat.Com, support WrennCom.Com, ·

First Things First: Salute America's Heroes · Fallen Heroes Fund · Frequent-Flyer-Miles for Troops · Thanks to Troops · Military News ·· MilBlogs ·

Home · Posts: Current /Recent · Videos/Toons/Songs: Latest · Embed-Codes · Text Index · Images Index · Archives: Old · New · About · Contact · Syndication · Affiliates ·

News Sources/Papers/Magazines Pundits Blogs ThinkTanks What is "property"? Pantheopians Global Climate Asteroids/Comets Hitting Earth--Risks/Predictions Science GlobalWeb

Political Satire /Commentary* Daily Updates .™©·2003 ..··
*Where the satire is always commentary but the commentary isn't always satire.

Installments for March 21--31, 2004 time period (in reverse chronological order).

Mar. 31, 2004: #01 Political Satire/Commentary where satire is always commentary but commentary isn't always satire ™·2004.
Permanent Link Send to a friend About author, Jim Wrenn Subscribe Google-News list of recent updates Home Search.

No update for Wednesday, March 31, 2004.·

Mar. 30, 2004: #01 Political Satire/Commentary where satire is always commentary but commentary isn't always satire ™·2004.
Permanent Link Send to a friend About author, Jim Wrenn Subscribe Google-News list of recent updates Home Search.

Condoleeza Rice testifying under oath before 9-11 Commission in public is necessary antidote to pandemic political cannibalism spread by the CC-DNA of Richard Clarke, et. al.·

PoliSat.Com.

None of us should celebrate the fact that political cannibalism spawned by the 9-11 Commission investigation has made sworn testimony by Condoleeza Rice in public before the Commission a necessary antidote to the pandemic scope of such cannibalism spread by the CC-DNA of Richard Clarke, et al by self-righteously promoting self-serving, half-hindsight revisionist history to generate cannibalistic hysteria against those who merely failed to prevent the most brilliantly executed, counter-intuitive example of barbarism in modern times on September 11, 2001, as though those who failed to prevent it somehow deserve moral blame for its success. The damage to the country from such propagandistic attack, which the dominant media has embraced with religious fervor while worshiping at the feet of Clarke ( whom 60 Minutes culpably described falsely as a "registered Republican") has reached the tipping point of being more harmful to the country than the damage to executive privilege caused by permitting Rice to testify under oath in public before the 9-11 Commission.

The dominant media have so obsessively fawned over Richard Clarke's frontal assault on Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld, Cheney and Wolfowitz that they have been utterly unwilling to perform even a cursory analysis of the flawed premises for Clarke's statement on 60 Minutes that if Bush were to have paid more attention to terrorism, 9-11 "might have been prevented." They've been equally unwilling to give more than scant attention to Clarke's sworn retraction of such statement before the 9-11 Commission, when he conceded that even if Bush were to have done everything he (Clark) had recommended, it "would not have prevented 9-11."

The 9-11 Commission has become the Church Committee Redux. One searches in vain for a compelling reason to engage in the public spectacle of 9-11 Commission hearings so severely damaging our intelligence-collection abilities, the degeneration of which begun long ago as a result of prior public spectacles and over-arching legislative "remedies" sharply decreased whatever remote chances that we might otherwise have been lucky enough to learn enough soon enough to prevent 9-11. One also searches in vain for anything other than naive, blind faith as a basis for anyone having assumed that a "Commission" composed of political people would have any realistic chance of conducting this inquiry without it becoming intensely partisan. Formation of such commissions in an attempt to provide an imprimatur of "non-partisan objectivity" for inquiries into what are essentially intensely political issues is a fool's errand.

The political desire of Bush's opponents to try to affix moral blame upon him for 9-11 and his post-9-11 strategy that eschews the old law-enforcement/tic-tac-toe tactics against terrorism is so intense that it's a virtual certainty that the slightest factual error by Rice in her testimony will spawn cries of "perjury" among the Bush-haters. However, one hopes such claims are more likely to fall on deaf ears than the constant media drumbeat exalting Clarke's testimony over Rice's prior un-sworn, un-public appearance before the 9-11 Commission.

A Rice Diet to Cure the CC-DNA Syndrome¹.

Our Uncle Sam's head's in a spin-zone
an ailment contracted, not in-grown.
Its symptoms are mean;
its color is green;
its name is the Richard Clarke Syndrome.

When Dubya sought expert advice
for Sam to resume feeling nice,
the experts approved
a diet of truth
prescribed by a Doctor named Rice.

It's good Dubya's taken advice
from allies requesting that Rice
by Bush be allowed
to lecture the crowd
in frenzies that Clarke has enticed.

It's certain that answers by Rice
could not be enough to entice
the Bush-hating mob
to credit the job
of Bush in the warfare we fight.

However, for folks not confined
to partisan realms for the blind,
the answers by Rice
will likely entice
approval of plans she designed.

The tipping point soon is approaching
when statements by Kerry reproaching
the strategy used
by Dubya will skew
the voters t'ward Bush without coaching.

It's a certainty that nothing Rice could say would in any way diminish the anti-Bush fervor of the Left and the Secular Fundamentalists. However, given the demonstrable lack of merit in the claims that 9-11 wouldn't have happened absent callous indifference, normal people not seized with such ideologically blind hatred will find her answers persuasive. --Jim Wrenn, Editor@PoliSat.Com.

¹·To learn about the "CC-DNA Syndrome," go here.

Mar. 29, 2004: #01 Political Satire/Commentary where satire is always commentary but commentary isn't always satire ™·2004.
Permanent Link Send to a friend About author, Jim Wrenn Subscribe Google-News list of recent updates Home Search.

Richard Clarke exhibits half-hindsight vision of what his counter-terrorism plans could have or would have accomplished.·

Former counter-terrorism expert Richard Clarke exhibits half-hindsight vision of what his counter-terrorism plans could have, or would have, accomplished. Eschewing binocular hindsight, he predicates his post-resignation claims on monocular hindsight, commonly known as half-hindsight.

Clarke's "charge" on 60 Minutes that Bush failed to embrace the counter-terrorism tactics he recommended for implementation in early 2001 that "might have prevented 9-11" exemplifies such half-hindsight. Clarke's self-righteous manner of presentation conveniently omitted what he later admitted under oath before the 9-11 Commission, which admission the media has almost totally ignored-- i.e., that even if Bush were to have fully implemented Clarke's recommendations, it "would not have prevented 9-11." Rather than focusing on this turnabout extracted from Clarke by one of the Commissioners with the same ease with which a dentist extracts a decayed but impacted wisdom tooth, the media has continued fawning incessantly on the implications of Clarke's original "charge" on 60 Minutes-- i.e., that if Bush were not to have been so indifferent to the dangers of al Qaeda's terrorist capabilities, 9-11 "might have been prevented."

Post-9-11 legislation repealing pre-9-11 stovepipe barriers against the FBI and CIA sharing intelligence information has left much of the public unaware that pre-9-11 laws criminalized the breaching of such barriers. None of Clarke's early-2001 recommendations would have, or could have, eliminated such barrier. Thus, there was no federal agency lawfully empowered to combine the FBI and CIA databases containing the oceans of "dots," nor was it technologically feasible to do so within a matter of a few months rather than a year or more even if Bush were to have had the legal power to unilaterally repeal the barriers. Thus, it would have been virtually, if not literally, impossible for agent Crowley's "dots" (i.e., her correct but not probable-cause-supported "hunch" about Moussaoui) and the Phoenix agent's "dots" (i.e, hunches about young men from the Middle East taking flying lessons) in the FBI's ocean of "dots" to be connected to the CIA's ocean of "dots."

Similarly, post-9-11 legislation facilitating procedures for analyzing grounds for detention based upon counter-warfare standards rather than law-enforcement standards alone has left much of the public unaware that Crowley's hunches were deemed insufficient to permit her office to gain lawful access to Moussaoui's hard-drive. Thus, even if the Bush administration were to have pursued appellate relief in an effort to obtain the access sought by Crowley, the judicial process could not have produced a favorable result in time for effective use of the data to prevent 9-11, which occurred a mere two-to-three weeks later.

Clarke's emphasis on intelligence "spikes" in the summer of 2001 indicating that al Qaeda may have been planning to "hijack airlines" conveniently omits that such "spikes" identified such hijacking as likely to involve using passengers as hostages to bargain for releases of prisoners and/or satisfaction of other political demands. Even greater intensification of alerts to airlines about such risks could not have done more than increase the chances of success for the 9-11 hijackers because prescribed procedures for pilots and attendants to respond to hijackings emphasized compliance with the hijackers' demands to minimize risks to passengers.

The post-9-11 environment in which Pakistan collaborated with, rather than resisting, our toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan has left much of the public with the false impression that before 9-11, Pakistan would have permitted, rather than strenuously opposing, cruise-missile flights over Pakistan en route to strike al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan, with whose Taliban government Pakistan was allied, as retaliation based on our beliefs that the bombing of the Cole was the work of al Qaeda. Given the fact that many months after the infamous video tape of Usama bin Laden bragging about having masterminded 9-11, the overwhelming majority of Muslims in Pakistan (and in many other Muslim countries as well as the "intellectuals" in France) still believed the Mossad, rather than al Qaeda, masterminded 9-11, one could not seriously contend that pre-9-11 the Pakistanis would have accepted as true our evidence that al Qaeda was responsible for bombing the Cole. Thus, binocular hindsigh-- in contrast to Clarke's monocular, half-hindsight-- makes it self-evident that large-scale cruise-missile attacks on Taliban/al-Qaeda targets in Afghanistan would have sparked enough outrage in the Muslim world (to borrow a phrase from Clarke) to massively increase al Qaeda's recruitment of more fanatics.

Since (a) none of the other measures would have prevented the 9-11 hijackers from continuing their plans and (b) cruise-missile bombing of Afghanistan would have intensified their sense of urgency, 9-11 would have occurred, and, in the wake of our having bombed Afghanistan, not only would have been viewed much less sympathetically by most of the world but would have made it dramatically more difficult, if not impossible, for us to procure assistance from Pakistan for toppling the Taliban. This is the harsh reality that Clarke's self-serving, self-righteous half-hindsight pronouncements, and the media's fawning over them, obscure.

Against Full-Hindsight.

I'm Clarke, and I'm basking in limelight
as Harvard Professor of Hindsight
displaying monocular
'stead of binocular
perception of hist'ry in hindsight.

To prove 9-11 we could've
prevented if Bush only would've,
approved plans I drew,
my half-hindsight view
shows Bush didn't do what he should've.

As long as the media limelight
refracts through monocular hindsight,
the public will choose
my half-hindsight view
for lack of binocular hindsight.

The rewrite of hist'ry I'm touting
is like single-entry accounting
according me credit
without any debits
for half-hindsight theories I'm spouting.

One could take a leap of faith to accept at face value Don Hewett's claim that innocent oversight led to 60 Minutes' failure to disclose that the parent company of CBS, Viacom, also owns the publishing company for Richard Clarke's book, Against All Enemies. However, one could not assume (at least not without an unforgivable degree of naivety) that 60 Minutes, which touts itself as the premiere investigative-journalism news program, had not learned before producing the interview of Clarke for broadcast on March 21, 2004, that Clarke voted for Gore in 2000 and that for at least the last decade, the only political candidacies to which he contributed were those of Democrats. Therefore, it's difficult to view 60 Minutes' touting him as a "registered Republican" as anything other than ideological spin by a program masquerading as "investigative journalism."

Mar. 28, 2004: #01 Political Satire/Commentary where satire is always commentary but commentary isn't always satire ™·2004.
Permanent Link Send to a friend About author, Jim Wrenn Subscribe Google-News list of recent updates Home Search.

No update Sunday, March 28, 2004.·

Mar. 27, 2004: #01 Political Satire/Commentary where satire is always commentary but commentary isn't always satire ™·2004.
Permanent Link Send to a friend About author, Jim Wrenn Subscribe Google-News list of recent updates Home Search.

ICANN is resisting U.N. attempts for control to begin for freedom to ebb on Earth's World Wide Web.·

Today, a closed-door meeting at the U.N. concluded a series of meetings this week involving the discussions and symposia on the World Wide Web. Whenever U.N. bureaucracies and diplomats meet to discuss "fixing" a problem, those who favor freedom-- especially freedom of speech-- should worry. Don't forget, the U.N. is an organization that would presume to "license" reporters. It's an organization that ensconced Libya as head of its "human-rights" commission.

Therefore, there is good cause for concern about the United Nation's continuing efforts to wrest control of internet domain suffixes from the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). Perhaps sometime in the distant future when (if) the United Nations can boast a record in favor of free speech and liberty to match that of the United States, one might conclude that the time would have then arrived for ICANN to report to an international version of the U.S. Department of Commerce. When will the United Nation manifest such unflinching support for freedom and liberty rather than political correctness and diplomatic euphemization of anti-freedom concepts? Don't hold your breath. It's not going to happen any time soon.

This week's series of meetings and symposia marks a suitable occasion to reprise previous installments of satire/commentary about the ongoing struggle between ICANN and the United Nations. The first was on December 5, 2004, which starts below. The second was on December 8, 2003, which follows immediately after the December 5, 2003 installment.
·
I think ICANN, I think ICANN... Will ICANN allow the U.N.'s control of the Web to begin?..·

The growth of the Internet Web
helps freedom advance 'stead of ebb,
so freedom demands
that government hands
do little in weaving the Web.

Reports say that soon the UN
intends to propose to begin
control of the Net
to aid and abet
the Third World's desires to get in.

Because the UN is the worstest
in helping the lastest be firstest,
to let it control
the Internet's folds,
it soon would become the Interred Net.

So ICANN¹ should tell Kofi Annan²
that if the UN won't abandon
its trigger-lock plank,
then ICANN will yank
permission to lock its ICANNon.·

ICANN to U.N., ipse dixit³-- The Net isn't broken; Don't "fix" it:
My own ipse dixit proclaims ICANN fix it.·

Reports say that ICANN received
'til 2005 a reprieve
from slow strangulation
by miscreant nations
who'd rule how the Web we should weave.

Proponents of UN control
on weaving the Internet's folds
resemble exhorters
to license "reporters"
by standards their governments mold.

It's not since our first-most Amendment
against free-expression infringement
that freedom received
such help to proceed
as that from the Wide-Web's invention.

Since using the Web may elicit
what tyrants perceive as illicit,
we can't simply by-stand
but must echo ICANN:
When something ain't broken, don't "fix" it.·
···
···
On December 8, 2003, the news (see articles in the Washington Times and TechNewsWorld) provided grounds for short-term optimism for those who (correctly) perceive proposals by some UN delegations for the United Nations to assume regulatory control over the worldwide web as a serious threat to freedom of communication. However, as is self-evident from the United Nations' continuing efforts to assert control over ICANN's functions, it's going to be a long battle requiring constant vigilance by the world wide web of those of us favoring freedom.

¹·ICANN (pronounced eye-can) is the acronym for The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). It's the non-profit corporation that was formed to assume responsibility for the IP address space allocation, protocol parameter assignment, domain name system management, and root server system management functions previously performed under U.S. Government contract by IANA and other entities. Here's the site: http://www.icann.org/.

²·Reports some time ago quoted Kofi Annan as expressing a preference for the English pronunciation of his last name to rhyme with "cannon" rather than "anon."

³·"Ipse dixit" is a Latin phrase used by lawyers in the context of determining admissibility of expert opinions. The gist of the phrase in that context is that a court is not bound to permit introduction of conclusions expressed by an expert merely on the basis of his credentials (i.e., a conclusion expressed by an expert is not rendered reliable (and, hence, admissible as evidence) merely because "he says it's so." Instead, the rules of evidence oblige the court to determine whether the data upon which the expert relies establish a reliable connection to the conclusion proffered by the expert. Here, I'm using "ipse dixit" in a somewhat broader sense to represent an assertion of a conclusion supported by logic and human experience.

Mar. 26, 2004: #01 Political Satire/Commentary where satire is always commentary but commentary isn't always satire ™·2004.
Permanent Link Send to a friend About author, Jim Wrenn Subscribe Google-News list of recent updates Home Search.

No update for Friday, March 26, 2004.·

Daily Update immediately preceding the one above.

··

Mar. 25, 2004: Poli Sat.Com's Political Satire/ Commentary* Daily Update # 01·· ™©·2004·(Home)·
*Where the satire is always commentary, but the commentary isn't always satire (but you'll know the difference)·
(Permanent, direct link to this Daily Update: http://polisat.com/du2004/du0403-21--31.htm#20040325-01.)
(Google News index of recent Political Satire/Commentaries by PoliSat.Com: Click this link.)
(Keep abreast of PoliSat.Com's Daily Political Satire/Commentary via Google's News Alert.)·

What if Bush were to have done everything Dick Clarke now claims he had urged, or would have urged, Bush to do?·

Part of what is most offensive about Dick Clarke's arrogance is his willingness to convey to Americans the false impression on CBS' 60 Minutes that if only everyone else had listened to him, 9-11 "might" have been prevented (even though he conceded under oath yesterday that even if Bush were to have followed every recommendation he made, it "would not have prevented" 9-11). Blaming Bush for 9-11 is even more unfair than blaming Clinton. Notwithstanding Bob Kerry's arguments to the contrary, no President could have realistically done in Afghanistan before 9-11 what Bush did after 9-11. What we now know in hindsight makes it abundantly clear that anything done in Afghanistan before 9-11 less than what Bush did after 9-11 would not only have been ineffective but would have made our situation dramatically worse.

Clarke's Hark--
Against All Inferiors-- My Inside War on Everyone Else's Errors.·

I'm Clarke, who had all of the answers
for stopping the terrorist cancer,
but people unfit
to step on my spit
rejected my cure for the cancer.

If Dubya had ordered the battle plans
I wrote for attacking Afghanistan
with cruise-missile bombs
in early '01,
I'm sure we'd have crippled the Taliban.

So-what if the rest of Afghanistan
and most of the Muslims in other lands
rejected our claim
"bin Laden's to blame"
for bombing our Cole in the Arab lands.

Though surely there would have been some
collateral damage by bombs,
so what if our "friends"
and Kofi's U.N.
decried "unilateral" bombs.

So-what if the friends of the Taliban
ensconced in the gov'ment of Pakistan
incensed by our bombs
gave dirty-nuke bombs
to Qaeda through friends in the Taliban?

So-what if we hadn't repealed
or broken the barrier sealed
to keep FBI
and CIA guys
from sharing the fruits of their fields?

So-what if the profile-type hunch
of Crowly¹ desiring to crunch
Moussaoui's hard drive
by law was denied
as based not on "cause" but on hunch?

My plan would've called-for alerting
the airlines of clues disconcerting
that Arabs would aim
to hijack some planes
to bargain for pris'ners returning.

So-what that to give such alert
would stress the old way to avert
the passengers' harm
by going along
and following hijackers' words?

So-what that such plan to avert
those dangers perversely would serve
the hijackers' aim
for flying the planes
at buildings where innocents worked?

So-what if applying my plan
stoked anger in Arabic lands
for bombs we'd been dropping
and would, 'stead of stopping,
have strengthened their Nine-One-One plan?

So-what if Eleven September's
attack would thus now be remembered
as retaliation
for bombing a nation
of Arabic-Taliban brethren?

So what if results of such view
so badly our image would skew
and limit our mission
to forge coalitions
to choices not many but few.

So what if my plan couldn't save
the thousands who went to their grave
that Nine-One-One Day,
I still could convey
how many al Qaedas we'd slain.

Since Clarke so arrogantly claims he had all the right answers, it's fair to hypothesize implementation what he now says Bush should have done to determine whether, on the basis of what we now know in hindsight, following his recommendations would have made the situation better or worse. What seems to have been the centerpiece of the tactics he misperceived as being the equivalent of a "strategy" was his recommendation that as soon as possible after taking office, Bush should have delayed plans to reconfigure the Predator to serve as a weapons platform to strike targets in real time by continuing to use the Predator to conduct surveillance to identify potential targets with the hope they would remain stationary for six hours to allow enough time for a cruise-missile to strike them.

Let's assume Bush were to have followed such strategy. Assume that in February, 2001, several Predators flying over Afghanistan (presumably without over-flight rights from any neighbor of that landlocked country) identify dozens of targets that appear to be Al-Qaeda/Taliban strongholds. Assume that on the basis of such information, we were to have launched several hundred (perhaps as many as a thousand) cruise missiles against such targets. Assume a very high percentage of such targets were destroyed without collateral damage. Since it's nearly a mathematical certainty that such strikes would not have been 100% successful in avoiding collateral damage, it's realistic to assume there would have been what much of the Arab world would have perceived as a slaughter of civilians in an Arab country still trying to recover from its war to evict the Russians. Unless we were to have been far luckier than it would be rational to assume, such strikes would have angered, but not destroyed, the al Qaeda leadership.

Soon after such attacks, Arab media in the Middle East would endlessly broadcast video tapes of Usama bin Laden and/or Ayman al-Zawahiri and/or Mullah Omar characterizing such action as the slaughter of Muslims by the American/Jewish "crusaders." Such tapes would predict swift and massive revenge against America. All but several members of the cells ready to launch 9-11 would have been already in the U.S. for quite a long time. They would maintain, or advance, but not abandon, their plans then in progress for the 9-11 attack. Many countries that were willing to help us fight terrorism (and topple the Taliban) after 9-11, would have refused to help us-- indeed, they would have characterized us as "terrorists" for attacking Afghanistan. (Remember, even after 9-11 and even after a tape surfaced in which bin Laden bragged about masterminding the 9-11 attack and laughed about the deaths he caused, a large majority of people in the Arab/Muslim world-- as well as many "intellectuals" in France-- believed the CIA and/or the Israelis, rather than Muslim fanatics, had committed the 9-11 attack and a large majority still viewed Operation Enduring Freedom as an example of the "Crusaders"--i.e., Americans and Jews-- attacking Islam?)

In the meantime, since Clarke's recommendations did not include, and Congress would not under any circumstances have passed, legislation like the Patriot Act to remove the legislatively-created "stove-pipe" barrier prohibiting the CIA and FBI from sharing intelligence information, the FBI could not have had access to the sea of dots possessed by the CIA and the CIA could not have had access to the sea of dots possessed by the FBI. (Furthermore, even if Bush could have waved a wand and "repealed" such stovepipe barriers, it was not technologically feasible for the CIA computers to share databases and information with the FBI computers and databases, and vice versa.

Furthermore, since Clarke's recommendations did not include, and Congress would not have enacted, laws to relax constitutional limitations on searches and seizures and to permit "profiling,"² of airline passengers to give special attention to passengers from, or appearing to be from, the Middle East or Muslim countries, Moussaoui's hard-drive still would not have been seized and the Arab hijackers would not have received the special scrutiny inherent in "profiling."

Additionally, since virtually all the "signs" in late-spring/early-summer 2001 indicating something "big" was about to happen indicated it would happen overseas and, to the extent those signs pointed to 'hijacking of airplanes," they indicated the purpose was expected to be the traditional purpose of taking the plane/passengers hostage in order to extract demands and/or obtain the release of imprisoned comrades. Therefore, heightened alerts to airline pilots would have underscored and reinforced the long-standing policy of cooperating with, rather than forcibly resisting, hijackers, which policy, paradoxically, virtually guaranteed the success of the hijackers' plans to commander the planes for use as missiles rather than traditional hostage-taking purposes. (Until 9-11, virtually no pilot and/or airline and/or politician would have urged the airlines to order pilots to forcibly resist hijackers and thereby place the passengers in great danger by doing so-- Remember, the passengers on the flight with Todd Beamer didn't resist until they learned the true nature of the mission-- otherwise, they probably would have sensibly remained passive during what they would have expected to be a "traditional" hijacking.

Against this backdrop, 9-11 would have occurred. The political recriminations we would be hearing today would be the Left screaming that if George Bush had not attacked Afghanistan, the hijackers wouldn't have committed the 9-11 atrocities. What I find so morally offensive by Clarke's "charges" is that he's used the imprimatur of his credentials as an "counter-terrorism expert" to given the survivors of the 9-11 victims the false impression that callous indifference by Bush led to the barbaric slaughter of their loved one. It's unforgivable.

One more thing, if CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC or NPR were to have obtained permission of an anti-Bush bureaucrat in the State Department or Defense Department to release the transcript of a "background" briefing contradicting something Donald Rumsfeld and/or Colin Powell and/or Condoleeza Rice were to have told the 9-11 Commission, Bob Kerrey would have lauded, rather than condemned, CNN, for having done so. Yet as a member of a panel ostensibly seeking the truth, he condemned Fox News for obtaining lawful permission to release information material to the credibility of Clarke. It's such blatant hypocrisy.

¹·See my May 31, 2002, installment, but please forgive my error in misspelling the FBI agent's name as "Rowly" rather than "Crowly.

²·Remember the outrage against those who initially suspected Middle-Eastern terrorism for the Oklahoma bombing by McVey?

...
··

Mar. 24, 2004: Poli Sat.Com's Political Satire/ Commentary* Daily Update # 01·· ™©·2004·(Home)·
*Where the satire is always commentary, but the commentary isn't always satire (but you'll know the difference)·
(Permanent, direct link to this Daily Update: http://polisat.com/du2004/du0403-21--31.htm#20040324-01.)
(Google News index of recent Political Satire/Commentaries by PoliSat.Com: Click this link.)
(Keep abreast of PoliSat.Com's Daily Political Satire/Commentary via Google's News Alert.)·

No update for Wednesday, March 24, 2004--Editor.·

...
··

Mar. 23, 2004: Poli Sat.Com's Political Satire/ Commentary* Daily Update # 01·· ™©·2004·(Home)·
*Where the satire is always commentary, but the commentary isn't always satire (but you'll know the difference)·
(Permanent, direct link to this Daily Update: http://polisat.com/du2004/du0403-21--31.htm#20040323-01.)
(Google News index of recent Political Satire/Commentaries by PoliSat.Com: Click this link.)
(Keep abreast of PoliSat.Com's Daily Political Satire/Commentary via Google's News Alert.)·

Anti-terrorism, remote-sensing techniques for DNA analysis reveal Dick Clarke and Wesley Clark suffer the same congenital malady-- the DNA-CC-MMQ Syndrome.·

Cutting-edge, remote-sensing DNA¹ analysis reveals Dick Clarke and Wesley Clark suffer the same congenital malady not previously discovered despite enormous scientific progress since the gene-mapping revelations several years ago by the Human Genome Project. Even more astounding is additional evidence that this congenital malady exhibits a characteristic heretofore unknown to modern science, which is a mechanism for epidemiological transmission to people otherwise not suffering such congenital malady.

Summarized below seriatim are the following categories of information about this startling discovery: (a) symptoms, (b) causes, (c) diagnosis, (d) prognosis and (e) treatment. The final segment (f) describes the ongoing process for classification of the malady and analysis of its unique epidemiological mode of transmission.

(a) Symptoms

Primary among the symptoms is behavior on the part of the victim caustically denigrating whomever he has previously most lavishly praised.

(b) Causes

The congenital DNA² malady generates an irresistible neural craving for a serotonin-induced sense of self-satisfaction following adrenalin-driven clenching of the fist with the index finger being pointed aggressively at whomever may have previously caused the victim to suffer serotonin starvation induced by such other person's failure, or refusal, to share the victim's perception of himself as being able to serve as, or provide, the lynchpin for devising a solution to a critical problem.

Unlike Alzheimer's, one need not wait for a physical autopsy to definitively diagnose this congenital DNA malady; rather, its manifestation is discernible via forensic autopsies. The technical, generic term for the malady is MMQ.³·

(d) Prognosis

Like Alzheimer's, the prognosis for this congenital DNA malady almost always ranges from bad to worse and then to worst, but unlike Alzheimer's, its degenerative course can sometimes be slowed (and, in rare cases, halted) by a radical treatment (described below). However, application of the treatment often has unjustifiably harmful effects on whoever applies it. Absent such treatment, however, the final stages of the malady produces uncontrollable intellectual flatulence.

(e) Treatment

The only known course of treatment, which can sometimes slow (and, in rare cases, halt) the degenerative process is to administrator a therapeutic process providing a specialized form of stimulation the malady induces the victim to crave. The therapy, for which the scientific term is "HOSE-PEW-AWAY-WAR,"** works by stimulating the victim's auditory nerves with particular sounds, hear of which the malady causes the victim to crave.

(f) Classification & Epidemiological Analysis

In seeking to coin a scientifically suitable name for this newly-discovered congenital malady, our experts are torn between two terms: "Clucking Clarks"*** or "Clarking Clucks." Our experts are also tracking the spread of this malady through a heretofore unidentified process they've discovered. In coining a suitable name for this epidemiological phenomenon, they're likewise torn between two terms: Cloning Clarks or Clarking Clones.·

Experts at the CDC**** are at a loss to determine how to effectively combat the spread of the malady, which reaches pandemic proportions in four-year cycles. However, our experts have discovered a way to combat it without the auditory treatment desired by victims: It requires exposing the congenitally-disabled victim to intense application of a small portion of the electromagnetic spectrum known as visible light mixing imagery and symbols to bring the malady to the surface-- i.e., the imagery and text of political satire:

CDC-Mobilization Against the CC-DNA-MMQ Syndrome.·

A syndrome that blocks one's ability
to ever exhibit humility
in weighing one's druthers
against those of others
is DNA-CC Proclivity.

Though Dick spells his Clarke with an "e"
and Wesley spells his without "e,"
the love shown by each
to pompously preach
shows "Clark" DNA called "CC"

Their DNA shares the same part,
"CC," causing "Clucking of Clarks,"
a syndrome producing
an arrogant hooting
at whom they support at the start.

"CC" causes changes in tunes
and changes in how they festoon
political plumage
for self-serving usage
when timing appears opportune.

Anyone reasonably knowledgeable about the "deficiencies" in our system that diminished the chances for our government to detect the 9-11 plot in time to prevent it already understood shortly after 9-11 that the most salient "deficiencies" were: (1) laws previously enacted by Congress creating "stove-pipe" barriers designed to criminalize the sharing of intelligence information between the CIA and the FBI (in order to protect us from becoming a police state); (2) treating efforts to prevent terrorism as a "law-enforcement" mission rather than a warfare mission; (3) being reluctant to sacrifice civil liberties by lowering the threshold for arrest, searches and seizures on the basis of sound law-enforcement hunches. Nevertheless, many have sought to preside over a Department of Hindsight still seek to sanctimoniously imply they would have had the foresight to know what we now know in hindsight. Footnotes follow below:

¹·Dissonant Neural Activity.

²·See footnote 1.

³·Monday Morning Quarterbacking.

**·In layman's terms, "HOSE- PEW-A-WAY-WAR," describes the following auditory stimulation the victim craves hearing: "his opponents saying penitently 'Everyone else was always wrong and you were always right."

***·Poetic license allows me to substitute "Clark" for "Clarke" to show the congenital harmony between Richard Clarke and Wesley Clark.

****·Center for Disingenuousness Contagions.

···

··

Mar. 22, 2004: Poli Sat.Com's Political Satire/ Commentary* Daily Update # 01·· ™©·2004·(Home)·
*Where the satire is always commentary, but the commentary isn't always satire (but you'll know the difference)·
(Permanent, direct link to this Daily Update: http://polisat.com/du2004/du0403-21--31.htm#20040322-01.)
(Google News index of recent Political Satire/Commentaries by PoliSat.Com: Click this link.)
(Keep abreast of PoliSat.Com's Daily Political Satire/Commentary via Google's News Alert.)·

John Kerry reiterates condemnation of "Benedict Arnold" companies "outsouring" American jobs to third-world countries.·

John Kerry demonstrates his sincere opposition to "negative" campaigning by promising to aggressively curb the "outsourcing" of jobs by "Benedict Arnold" companies. Kerry reiterated this promise against the backdrop of a wine and cheese party at an American winery in northern Virginia making French wine in vineyards started with vines "in-sourced" from France and making French cheese with milk from French cows also "in-sourced" from France.

Drinking wine and cutting cheese while fielding questions from reporters, Kerry stressed that under his administration, more jobs would be "in-sourced" from France than at any time since Lafayette. When reporters asked him to name some of the "Benedict Arnold" companies, he said, "I'd rather stress a positive theme than to name particular companies." Holding his glass high, he said, "Instead, I propose a toast to Lafayette, "the great Frenchman, who was no Benedict Arnold like so many CEO's of American corporations today.

Moving over to the table with ham biscuits and shrimp, Kerry scooped a shrimp into a bowl of cocktail sauce, woofed it down and then announced to the attentive audience of reporters: "Aaahhhhh, there's nothing better with shrimp than Heinz Cocktail Sauce-- and it tastes even better now than it did when Heinz was owned by a rich Republican."

Signaling his readiness to resume taking questions from the press, he told the reporters, "Okay, ask me your toughest questions." Accepting his challenge, one of the inside-the-beltway reporters asked, "Do you think your inadvertently failing to be wary of an open microphone in your private conversation describing your opponents as 'the most crooked, lying bush [you'd] ever seen" has caused the Republicans to tone down their crooked, slash-and-burn, lying campaign ads against you?" Kerry replied, "That's a tough question. They're still trying to question my patriotism by focusing on my voting record, so I'd have to say the Bush attack machine is still in high gear."

One reporter in the back of the crowd shouted the next question, asking Kerry whether he's prepared to repudiate statements by Ted Kennedy suggesting Bush send Americans to die in a war he "hatched" at his ranch in Crawford to serve the financial interests of his wealthy supporters. Shouting back to be heard above the other reporters boos at that reporter, Kerry asked him, "Are you a Republican?" When the reporter said, "No," Kerry said, "Well, you ought to know that anyone who would hatch a plan for a war for such purposes will certainly run a negative campaign attacking my patriotism, so I won't dignify you question with an answer."

The next reporter picked by Kerry asked him to elaborate on his condemnation of the Benedict Arnold companies outsourcing jobs to third-world countries. As New England liberal Democrats are wont to do, Kerry said he would answer with a poem:

John Kerry: Crusader against "Benedict Arnold" Outsourcing.

I'm Kerry, resuming my barnstorm
performing political encores
as Lib'ral Crusader
against corp'rate traitors
like Benedict Arnolds who outsource.

It's sad that my words I must leaven
with terms made in Hell 'stead of Heaven
like traitorous slav'ry,
except for my fav'rite
variety: Heinz's Fifty-Seven.

When Kerry finished reciting his policy-wonk poem, the "Republican" reporter in the back asked him why Heinz has fifty-seven plants outside the United States, to which Kerry said, "Stop attacking my patriotism."

··

Mar. 21, 2004: Poli Sat.Com's Political Satire/ Commentary* Daily Update # 01·· ™©·2004·(Home)·
*Where the satire is always commentary, but the commentary isn't always satire (but you'll know the difference)·
(Permanent, direct link to this Daily Update: http://polisat.com/du2004/du0403-21--31.htm#20040320-01.)
(Google News index of recent Political Satire/Commentaries by PoliSat.Com: Click this link.)
(Keep abreast of PoliSat.Com's Daily Political Satire/Commentary via Google's News Alert.)·

No Update today, Sunday, March 21, 2004.·

···

...

For the Daily Update immediately preceding the one above, click here.

Other sites that feature PoliSat.Com's Political Satire/Commentary-- Click here to view our Affiliates page.