“We are, quite frankly, disappointed that the eighty-seven billion dollars did not last a little longer,” said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. “Having said that, we are confident that the next $87 billion will be money well spent.”
Mr. McClellan added that the White House would seek an additional $87 billion to fund continuing operations in Iraq through next Wednesday.
The White House, anticipating criticism from congressional Democrats, conceded today that Iraq was turning out to be more expensive than first estimated, but blamed the exorbitant price tag on the high cost of food service at Baghdad International Airport.
“Currently, a cheese sandwich and a Pepsi at Baghdad International cost twenty-eight dollars,” Mr. McClellan said, adding that the airport’s food service providers, the Halliburton Company, were working hard to bring those costs down.
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) today blasted the two-day expenditure of $87 billion, telling reporters in New Hampshire, “Given the way this has turned out, I am fairly certain that I would change my vote on the appropriations bill, if I could remember which way I voted on it.”
On NBC’s Meet the Press, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice urged approval of the additional eighty-seven billion dollars in funding, arguing, “Not providing another $87 billion would make a mockery of the $87 billion we just spent.”
On other matters, Dr. Rice added that the U.S. had no intention of invading North Korea, but said that verbally threatening North Korea remained a viable and less expensive option.
Privately, President Bush acknowledged that he was “surprised” that the $87 billion for Iraq did not last longer than two days.
CHENEY EXPANDING EVEN FASTER THAN ECONOMY
Creates 20,000 Jobs for Halliburton in Last Quarter
The White House had yet another piece of good economic news to trumpet over the weekend, announcing that Vice President Dick Cheney expanded even faster than the U.S. economy in the quarter just ended.
“Our economic policy, including our program of tax cuts for the highest income brackets, have resulted in the most dramatic expansion of a Vice President in U.S. history,” President Bush said in his weekly radio address on Saturday.
While President Bush acknowledged that many Americans had yet to reap positive benefits from Mr. Cheney’s explosive growth, he said that it was only a matter of time before the Vice President’s surging wealth trickled down to the rest of the country.
According to figures released by the White House, Vice President Cheney expanded at a torrid 11.2 percent rate in the last quarter, creating over 20,000 new jobs, most of them for the Halliburton Company.
While economists expressed amazement at Mr. Cheney’s unprecedented growth rate, however, some doubted that his dramatic expansion could be sustained.
But Charles Donner, chief economist for Credit Suisse First Boston, predicted that the quarter will also be strong for the Vice President, with the completion of an oil and gas pipeline leading directly from the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan directly into Mr. Cheney himself.
Vice President Dick Cheney is on a pace to become the world’s largest economy, latest numbers indicate.
“With the completion of that pipeline, Dick Cheney will become the second-largest economy in the world,” Mr. Donner said.
GE STILL PAYING FOR RETIRED CEO’S CRACK, HO’S
Jack Welch’s Posse Swells to 400
In the latest tale of CEO greed to hit Wall Street, outraged investors learned today that General Electric is still paying for former CEO Jack Welch’s crack, ho’s and 400-homie-strong posse.
The revelations, which appeared in divorce papers filed by estranged wife Jane Welch, drew howls from corporate governance watchdogs.
“It may have been appropriate for GE to foot the bill for Welch’s crack, ho’s and posse while he was still running the company,” said Peter Kenney of the Institute for Corporate Responsibility. “But certainly not in retirement.”
Mr. Kenney was especially critical of the size of Welch’s retirement posse, which he termed “extraordinary” even by Fortune 500 standards.
“A retired CEO really should be able to get by with twenty or thirty homies at most,” Mr. Kenney said.
But for his part, Mr. Welch was unrepentant, appearing at a press conference with his wife, former Harvard Business Review editor Suzy Wetlaufer, and his 400-member posse, decked out in Prada suits and expensive designer eyeglasses.
“I represent honies with money fly guys with gems,” Welch said, adding, “Drive with the tints that be thirty-five percent.”
The outcry about Welch’s retirement perks came amid revelations that his West Coast rival. Bill Gates, had just increased the size of his posse to 500.
Former General Electric CEO Jack Welch defended retirement benefits that include crack, ho’s, and a bloated posse of fly guys.
The swelling size of the two corporate honchos’ posses raised fears among many in the financial community about a potentially volatile East Coast-West Coast confrontation between the CEOs, their homies, and money fly guys with gems.
COPYCAT MINERS TRAP SELVES FOR MOVIE DEAL
Hoping for Heroic Rescue, 10 Percent of the Gross
Apparently inspired by the impressive sums that Hollywood has offered the rescued miners in western Pennsylvania, a group of nine miners in western Indiana have intentionally trapped themselves in a mine in the hopes of scoring a movie deal.
“My clients are hoping for a heroic rescue and a percentage of the adjusted gross,” said Ian Whitestone of the William Morris Agency, who is representing the self-trapped miners in their Hollywood dealings.
The stakes are high for the so-called “copycat” miners, who are trying to land not only a movie deal but also seven-figure paydays for trapped-miner video games, action figures, and a possible sitcom or Broadway musical.
But with several Hollywood studios and broadcast networks taking “pitches” from the trapped miners via conference calls yesterday, the initial results were somewhat less than encouraging.
“I heard their whole story, and I thought they needed a new ending,” said Stacy Conant, a production vice president at Paramount Pictures. “Right now, all that happens is they get rescued. I was like, So what? It seemed a little tired to me.”
Bob Littlesmith, a programming executive at ABC, agreed: “Their whole pitch kind of fell off at the end. It definitely needs a twist. Maybe they could eat each other or something.”
For his part, William Morris’ Whitestone said his clients would do whatever it takes to score a deal based on their self-inflicted ordeal.
“My clients are completely open to the idea of not being rescued, and are currently exploring the idea of eating each other,” Mr. Whitestone said.
Hollywood executives called the stories pitched by copycat miners “derivative.”
BUSH: SADDAM BOUGHT GERANIUMS, NOT URANIUM
White House Defends War Decision Based on Typo
In an extraordinary retraction of key elements in his last State of the Union address, President George W. Bush revealed today that Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein did not attempt to buy uranium in Africa, as earlier alleged, but merely geraniums.
“As I was reading the speech to the nation, I should have caught that typo,” the President told reporters today. “My bad.”
While the news about the uranium/geranium goof stunned diplomatic circles, Mr. Bush remained resolute about his decision to go to war, arguing that buying geraniums, while not as potentially dangerous as buying uranium, still represented a “suspicious” activity on the part of the Iraqi madman.
Saddam may have sought deadly geraniums (pictured) in Africa.
“The question we have to ask is, who was he buying these geraniums for?” Mr. Bush said. “Was he buying them for Osama bin Laden or Kim Jong II or some other evildoer? Luckily, we’ll never find out.”
Mr. Bush said that, thanks to Operation Iraqi Fr
eedom, “Saddam Hussein is no longer free to terrorize the world with his evil flower-buying sprees.”
While the President may have been trying to quell international criticism, his comments instead sparked more controversy, as French President Jacques Chirac challenged the U.S. to find evidence of geraniums anywhere in Iraq.
In response, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said that while the U.S. had yet to turn up any concrete evidence of geraniums, U.S. forces had uncovered several “suspicious” empty flowerpots outside of Basra.
Asked by reporters about the flowerpots, Mr. Bush gave a thumbs-up gesture and said, “Mission accomplished.”
QWEST SELLS YELLOW PAGES FOR $7 BILLION; HIGHEST PRICE EVER PAID FOR FREE ITEM FOUND IN DRIVEWAY
Phone Book’s Price Tag Surprises Many at Company’s Yard Sale
Embattled telecom giant Qwest Communications sold the Yellow Pages yesterday for $7.05 billion, believed to be the highest price ever paid for a free item found in the driveway.
The surprising ten-figure sale occurred at a company yard sale held to avert a bankruptcy filing, said Roy Helton, a Qwest employee who helped run the yard sale.
“We were just throwing stuff in the back of our Explorer to bring it to the yard sale, and my wife said, ‘Hey, how about those Yellow Pages?’” Mr. Helton said, referring to a phone directory that had just been delivered and was still sitting in the driveway.
“So I said, ‘Sure, what the hey,’ but I never thought in a million years that anyone would buy it,” Mr. Helton said. “Nobody ever pays for the Yellow Pages—they’re free.”
Contrary to his expectations, Mr. Helton said, the Yellow Pages were snapped up at the yard sale by the Carlyle Group and Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe.
“To say I was surprised that they paid several billion for a phone book is putting it mildly,” he said. “There were perfectly good copying machines and printers sitting right next to it on the table.”
Qwest stunned analysts with the $7 billion it received for a phone book it sold at a company yard sale.
On Wall Street, telecom analyst Carla Bollinger of Credit Suisse First Boston said that the $7 billion price tag garnered by the Yellow Pages may inspire troubled companies to sell other free items found in driveways, such as supermarket circulars and Chinese takeout menus.
U.S. SENDS UDAY AND QUSAY’S HEADS ON 21-CITY TOUR
“Not Gloating,” Cautions Rumsfeld
In an extraordinary attempt to convince the Iraqi people that fallen madmen Uday and Qusay Hussein are dead, the U.S. today announced plans to send the heads of the evil brothers on a twenty-one-city tour of Iraq later this week.
The despised heads are scheduled to make stops in Mosul, Basra, Tikrit and the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, returning to Baghdad at the end of August.
At the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld denied that the extensive showings of the Hussein brothers’ heads constituted gloating on the part of the U.S., and said that T-shirts, bumper stickers and beverage cups bearing the images of the two evildoers would be “tasteful.”
Dismissing charges of gloating, Mr. Rumsfeld said, “It would be gloating if I danced a jig around the heads while stark naked, and there are no plans at the present time for me to do that.”
The upcoming tour must convince a highly skeptical Iraqi populace that the two Hussein brothers are in fact dead, as a recent poll finds that 94 percent of all Iraqis believe that the heads shown on TV were not those of Uday and Qusay, but were instead part of a really bad makeover show.
In other dismemberment news, the right hand of Senator Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) fell off today after a three-hour book signing of her bestseller, Living History, at a San Francisco Barnes & Noble bookstore.
In Baghdad, an Iraqi citizen responded to the news that Uday and Qusay Hussein’s heads would go on a twenty-one-city tour.
Ms. Clinton was rushed to an area hospital for treatment while her hand remained at the store and signed books for another forty-five minutes.
BASEBALL TAKES BOLD STEPS TO ALIENATE REMAINING FANS
Commissioner Selig Declares All Future Games “a Tie”
Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig announced today that Major League Baseball is about to take a series of bold steps with the stated goal of alienating its remaining fans forever.
“At baseball stadiums across the country, it is too hard to find parking spots, and one must wait on long lines for beer and bathrooms,” Mr. Selig said. “All of these problems have the same source: simply put, the sport has too many fans.”
As Mr. Selig’s first step in his plan to achieve contraction of baseball’s fan base, the commissioner declared all games to be played for the remainder of the 2002 season a tie.
“The score’s tied, fans, so please, don’t watch the game,” Mr. Selig said. “Watch wrestling or NASCAR instead.”
In addition, Mr. Selig said, it would now take nine strikes to strike out a batter instead of the traditional three, a rule-change aimed at making the average game six and a half hours long.
These changes, along with the outlawing of home runs and stolen bases, should reduce baseball’s popularity to the level of badminton or curling, Mr. Selig promised.
In addition, the commissioner said, the traditional seventh-inning stretch will now entail the playing of a thirty-minute section from rocker Lou Reed’s album Metal Machine Music, during which time stadium ushers will move about the stands poking spectators with sharp sticks.
In an effort to alienate its few remaining fans, Major League Baseball plans to make ticketholders wait for hours and then spray them with fire hoses before permitting them to enter the stadium.
KIM’S BLOG
One thing you may not know about yours truly is that over the years I have been an enormous fan of American baseball. Fidel Castro turned me onto the sport many years ago at a meeting of the Council of Evil (this was before we changed our name to the scarier-sounding “Axis”—“Council” made us sound like a fucking trade association).
A couple of years later, Castro convinced me to join a rotisserie league he was in. During baseball season, I used to spend almost as much time updating the stats of my rotisserie team as I did restarting dormant nuclear reactors. I used to take a lot of shit for this around the office, I can tell you that!
In recent years, though, much of the fun of the sport of baseball has been drained out of it, largely due to the widespread use of steroids. When players who might have hit only ten home runs a year now routinely hit fifty or sixty, the uniqueness of the achievement is gone. It’s like, what would be the fun of having ninety long-range ballistic missiles if you found out that South Korea had ninety big ones, too? It’s enough to make you want to blow up the world.
So lately I’ve been gravitating away from baseball and watching women’s tennis. That Anna Kournikova is some hot hot hottie! I wonder If she’s with anyone.
PETER JENNINGS RESPONDS TO PAY CUT WITH NEWS CUT
His Salary Slashed, ABC Anchor Plans to Read 50 Percent Less News
ABC’s World News Tonight anchor Peter Jennings said today that if the network proceeds with plans to cut his salary, he would respond by reading 50 percent less news during each evening telecast.
“Mr. Jennings acknowledges the network’s desire to curtail costs in its news division,” a spokesman for Mr. Jennings said today. “But if his salary is slashed as has been proposed, Mr. Jennings will respond by reading the news in a totally lazy-ass way.”
According to his spokesman, Mr. Jennings will also refuse to read news stories taking place on more than two continents in the same telecast.
Under this plan, Mr. Jennings might read news stories about Afghanistan and Venezuela in the same evening, for example, but refuse to report any news about America.
“In an ideal world, it would be great if Peter were willing to report events that are happening in America,” ABC News President David Westin acknowledged. “But we have to cut corners somewhere, and if tha
t means no news about America, so be it.”
Contacted at his office in New York, Mr. Jennings said that he would no longer feel obligated to speak in complete sentences, or even grammatical ones.
Peter Jennings has threatened to read 50 percent less news if ABC insists on slashing his salary.
“You gets what you pays for,” Mr. Jennings said.
In addition, Mr. Jennings indicated that he would not make an effort to dress up for his nightly news broadcasts anymore, but would instead dig into his closet full of raunchy-slogan T-shirts.
Jennings’ collection of smutty T-shirts has been legendary in news circles ever since last summer, when the esteemed newsman showed up at a party in East Hampton wearing a shirt that read ANCHORMEN DO IT UNDER THEIR DESKS.
BUSH EYES SWEATER-RICH KASHMIR AS KEY SOURCE OF STATIC ELECTRICITY
“No Blood for Wool,” D.C. Protesters Chant
Just days after the worst electrical blackout in U.S. history, the Bush administration is focusing new attention on the contested region of Kashmir, the world’s leading producer of wool for cashmere sweaters, as a sustainable source of static electricity.
With the U.S. electrical grid overtaxed and with public opposition to nuclear power plants on the rise, Mr. Bush has become an enthusiastic supporter of using cashmere sweaters to create substantial amounts of static electricity going forward, aides say.
The Borowitz Report Page 7