HURRI-CON REPORT

It came out this past weekend that the Citizens for Responsibility and
Ethics in Washington, CREW, unearthed some interesting data on the
Katrina after mess.  It seems other nations offered our nation 854
million dollars in cash, oil and material to help, and it also turns
out that the Bush administration was so unprepared for the generosity
of others (this is called projection gang) that we were only able to
process and use 40 million of the offered assistance; less than
5%.  When questioned, Con-thee-Rice or as we call her at the Faux
News Network, Ms. Con, heh-hehed that we’re not used to getting charity
so we weren’t prepared.  That our administration can’t anticipate
hurricanes, can’t read terrorist memos has been proven; but now we
learn they can’t even receive aid.  Hey, I know we’re hard on this
shucks for brains bunch but sometimes we just have to look a gift farce
in the mouth.

MISSING DAVID HALBERSTAM AND (THE OLD) JOHN MCCAIN

We are saddened by the untimely death of legendary author David
Halberstam, a writer for all seasons.  His sports books which were
literally his respites from weightier topics were superb, and “Summer
of 49” we feel is the best baseball book ever written.  But it was
his 1972 review of the Vietnam War with “The Best and the Brightest”
that made the quintessential argument against reckless wars of choice
that is his work for the ages.  Even the forward featuring the
following “Insights into how a great and good nation can lose a war and
see its worthy purposes and principles destroyed by self-delusion”
illuminates to this day.  That contribution was made by a man
named John McCain, back from being held prisoner of war in Vietnam, and
speaking realistically from first hand experience; we miss that guy
too.

NOT WANTED . . . A DOLT 45

    We’re told that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales,
nicknamed “Fredo” by George W. Bush – draw your own conclusions there,
was rehearsed and ready for his testimony before the Senate. 
Since he had prepped and repped for many hours, we at Faux News Network
dared to presume was going to give actual answers regarding the firings
of 7 Attorney Generals by the very administration that appointed
them.  But, actual replies to questions is something the American
people did not get; instead on the first day before lunch, Mr. Gonzales
had responded to questions asked that “He did not recall” some FORTY
FIVE (45) times.  As Ricky Ricardo of “I Love Lucy” would have
said “Alberto (Fredo?) you got some “splaining” to do”:  it’s that
or be a Dolt 45.

THERE BUT FOR THE GRAYS OF GOD DEPT.

    So much of this world is random luck, bad and good,
disastrous or grand, and any design seems to elude us.  There are
inherent chances in day to day life, the gray area, leading to our
destinies which are written in black and white, and sometimes as in the
tragic incident at Blacksburg in blood.  But if nothing can change
that, here then is what we all, no doubt, wish we could say to any
would be Cho Seung-Hui’s of the future; don’t you dare because we’re
not going to make it that easy for you to gun up.  But
unfortunately don’t you dare is what the NRA and its political (lap)
dogs say to any would be proponents of having our murder rates reduced
to that of well, virtually any other nation on earth.  The very
pro-guns all the time Senator from Idaho, Larry E. Craig, Republican,
said it best (for his interests anyway) putting it this way “There are
several gun control advocates who have behind their name today, r-e-t,
retired, Some of it was voluntary.  Some of it was
involuntary.”  So it’s not killers beware, its legislators who
would disarm them beware.  Yeah, they’re the real danger.

    I can’t imagine the sense of blindside grief that
the parents and other family members of the victims at Virginia Tech
feel.  If they are among the many who believe in gun sanity, they
probably might think, among many other thoughts, regarding their
political opposites, what have you done to us?  And here’s the
puzzling part (to us):  if the leave no gun behind bunch has had
any family fall victim to Mr. Cho, considering the ease with which he
legally armed himself; do they ever wonder, what have we done to
ourselves?

Or maybe, they’ll just continue to be surprised by the fact that the
nation with the highest concentration of handguns has the highest
concentration of gun murders.

GUNS AND POSES DEPT.

            Virtually
all sane sources confirm that President Clinton’s ban on assault weapons
resulted in a drop of approximately 12,000 gun deaths annually in the U.S.  When campaigning for president in 2000,
George Bush said that it’s impossible to think of any good reason to repeal that
ban: the operative word it turns out being “think”.  

           The phrase
"Guns don't kill people; people kill people" is of course, one of those
classic complete sentences which are not complete truths. Because a
shovel can kill a person and so could a pillow, but with all due
respect and condolences to those at Virginia Tech, not 33 in a half
hour. So to Mr. Bush and all those who dont or wont understand what the
lethal combination of ready access to guns and impulsive behavior can
do, again the operative word is think. Just ask the very
Republican James Brady family about Mr. Brady's years since his
encounter with our not so friendly fire culture.            

IMUS OFF HIS MOORING UPDATE

            On the
record as we always are, we at Faux News Network believe Don Imus should not
have been fired and are hopeful he’ll get back his job, if not his
eminence.  If we consider that Mr. Imus
is an open recovering alcoholic and drug addict, and just how much good he’s
done for others with those challenges, it makes us more than hopeful he could
be a force for tolerance as well.

            However, we
do have a couple of caveats, along with that recommendation . . . First his
replacements (for now) have to stop using complete sentences in lieu of
complete truths (I know that’s one of our credos) about Imus’s remark.  It wasn’t his reflexive reaction to a news
story about the women’s finals that did him in, it was his repetition of his reflexively
degrading (to women among other demographics) sidekick, Bernard McGuirk.  Many have said they don’t feel Imus is a
bigot and we’ll give the benefit of the doubt, but if someone were to ask us
the same concerning Bernard and Charles McCord (his other sidekick) if they’re
not racially biased individuals, they could (and have) fooled us and others.

            And please
stop the nonsense that Mr. Imus represents all political points of view, at
best you could say kinda, sorta.  Because
two of the (if not the two) leading
Democratic contenders for their party’s presidential nomination in 2008,
Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama, are personalities he’s said in advance he would not give a fair shot or any shot on his show.  Denying the only woman and black candidate a voice would not exactly be the way to show
one was coming to grips with his issues about women and blacks.

          We still hope he
gets back and that his sidekicks are friend enough, loyal enough, and
just plain men enough to own up to their very crucial part in Don Imus'
travails and maybe meet the Rutgers women themselves, as a team, and
then in a fun basketball two on two exibition. They (McCord and
McGuirk) could use the experience and we could use the laughs...and we
could also use Don Imus back doing his newly found tolerant good.

           

PAYING HOMAGE ON APRIL 15TH: REMEMBER THE INTEGRATOR, THE EMANCIPATOR, AND OH YES, THE CALCULATOR

One
of the more multi-anniversaried days on the American calendar is April
15th.  In 1947 that day marked the beginning of Jackie Robinson’s
major league career, integrating baseball and enhancing our country,
and alas, this date also marks the date of Abraham Lincoln’s death, in
the year, 1865, due to some very pro-active politics of the time. 
And, of course, on (or about) April 15th, our taxes must be calculated
and paid.  One of our favorite anecdotes regarding the certainty,
if not the equity of taxes in today’s USA involves a fairly solvent
Democrat arguing with a middle income Republican.  The Democrat
put it this way; although we disagree sharply on the fitness of this
president and this version of the GOP party, we do share a unique
political and economic symmetry which is echoed on tax day: 
namely that each election, I vote your (the middle classes’) economic
interests as a Democrat and you (as a Bush Republican) vote mine. 
Happy returns to all. 

THE MARKETING OF JOHN MCCAIN, UPDATE

Did Senator McCain really hold his press conference, saying he went to
a Baghdad market in safety, neglecting to mention he was protected by a
well documented force of over 100 armed and ships?  And did he
really do it on April Fools’ Day?

IMUS OFF HIS MOORING?

            That Don
Imus made distasteful remarks about any demographic, including the women of the
Rutgers basketball team  should come as
no surprise, but  . . .  a number of things should be considered, not
the least of which is that America has a short attention span and there are second and third acts in our
country.  Two examples are relevant, one
being Al Sharpton (of  Tawana Brawley
shame) and another being the Rev. Jesse Jackson, he of some not so kosher
remarks about “Hymie Town”, his personal take on NYC.  Were such remarks spoken by a non-right wing
white politician, (don’t forget Trent Lott again has major influence in
Republican Washington) their stench would have a much longer shelf life.  And while Mr. Imus may claim that his insults
are of equal opportunity, but they are not equal in intensity; any who’ve
listened to the Imus show’s body of work knows his crew has enthusiastically
engaged in caricatures of blacks that are more pointed than those other groups,
and with the exception of their obsession with Bill Clinton, done with more
venom.



That noted,
we feel strongly that Don Imus is a man with a superb legacy of charitable work
for many of the most deserving and needy and that should be taken into account
when judging his punishment (a two week suspension) which seems appropriate.  But if Mr. Imus is serious about making changes
in his show, he should start by expanding the scope of his influential guests
while contracting the influence some assistants who’ve hardly assisted, based
on their body of work.  First as to his show’s content, there are
certainly black columnists of import; the gifted Bob Herbert of the NY Times
comes to mind, and black talk show hosts who would be more than guest
worthy.  Next, regarding some of his in
studio “kicks”, frankly, Mr. Imus reminds one of a well intentioned person who
has fallen in with a bad crowd.  The
content spewed during his budding growth to the right brings to mind a scene
from the movie “Good Morning, Vietnam”,
starring Robin Williams as an Army DJ in Saigon.  In a climactic moment, a hard but fair General reprimands the Sergeant
(who does not share the fair part) and who has been Mr. Williams’ antagonist
throughout the picture with the most salient of remarks to the effect that he has
no higher purpose, saying “You’re
just mean, that’s all”.  And while Don
Imus may jump to defend his (on the right) sidekicks, they’re just mean, that’s all, and they’ve done no small part to
help set the stage for the stage he’s now on. 
At least that’s our view, or should we say, our listen, and we hope Mr.
Imus is back, and this time in control in all respects, all due respect. 

Postscript: The day after this letter was written, it was revealed in the national media that on
April 4^th, one such cohort, Bernard McGuirk, described the Rutger’s
women as “Some hard-core hos”, Imus then repeated the sentiment on the air; we
all know what followed.  Let’s see now if
change gone come.

HUGH HEFNER – MULTI-TASKER MASTER

           This week marks the 81^st birthday of Hugh Hefner,
the founder of Playboy Enterprises.  Now,
Mr. Hefner has not exactly been a role model for age appropriate acting but we
at Faux News Network see it a differently, in a more layered way so to speak.

            Consider,
if we add the age of his three live-in companions, who share his life and bed, together they approximately share his
age.  And sharing can be good, especially
for the multi-tasking Hugh Hefner.

POLITICAL WASTE MATTERS

Barak Obama said it and got grief and John McCain echoed it and
immediately flopped and flipped (only Dems can flip flop) but
nevertheless, many are still thinking it.  And that is that the
lives lost in this ill begotten Iraq war of choice have been
“wasted”.  Frankly, we prefer the term “wasted deaths” because
these lives were on the whole bravely lived by men and women who
volunteered to serve their country, and up until their untimely ends,
were anything but wasted.  Oh, and the idea that we have to keep
on to honor the dead, was first floated in another war of choice,
Vietnam, and get this, the records show that argument was initially
used when we had less than 100 dead in RVN, with 50,000 to go. 
Our heroes in D.C. knew which arguments, and draft, to dodge, huh?

NO PAC-MAN GAMES

Barak Obama has raised 25 million dollars to run for
president, a remarkable feat on 3 fronts.



First, the
amount of money itself almost as much as Hillary Clinton, second, the number of
individual’s donating are over 100,000 strong and, most interesting he refused all PAC (Political Action
Committee) money.  They say he’s
inexperienced; obviously because he hasn’t yet learned enough to sell his soul.

FROM THE BAR-SET-SO-LOW RANCH

One phrase, among many, frequently
used to criticize our president’s surge strategy in Iraq is to say he’s doubling down
(or is that dubbing down) his bets.  Sad to say this description has
proven to be eerily prescient as during March American casualties were double
that of the Iraqi’s who are supposedly “leading” the operations on the
crackdown in Baghdad. 
Doubling down, cracking down, cracking up or on crack, just what is still
driving our Grand-Stander-in Chief?  Oh, and if Baghdad
is quieter, the number of Iraqi civilians killed in all of Iraq was up
by 15% in March as opposed to February.  The wag that doctors bury their
mistakes may be replaced by noting that these Republicans bury their successes.

THE MARKETING OF JOHN MCCAIN

    This past week Senator John McCain, presidential
candidate, former prisoner of war hero, not his choice, and a current
prisoner of Mr. Bush’s war in Iraq, so his choice, made some
interesting remarks about safety in Baghdad.  It seems, the
senator feels that the American media is reporting only the bad news
and on point, he claimed that there were many parts of Baghdad in which
an American could walk in safety.  So this weekend, when he made a
surprise visit to the green zone in Iraq, and held a Q&A with
reporters, he mentioned he had done that very thing, gone to a local
market and bartered and mixed with the locals.

    As a presidential candidate, Mr. McCain may just be
our guy, emulating one of our faux news credos; “Complete sentences are
acceptable in lieu of complete truths”, and we are impressed that he
forgot to mention, shall we say, his shopping accessories.  Those
included 100 armed guards (someone had to be in charge of the coupons),
3 Black hawk helicopters, 2 Apache gun ships (someone’s got to haul the
groceries), a bullet proof vest for the senator and, we believe, a
Haliburton prototype armored shopping cart.  Just imagine a future
when, in a democratized Iraq, American shoppers need only 50 armed
guards and 2 or 3 protective aircraft.  Like Mr. McCain, we can
dream.