Bush asks Congress for $30 Billion (warning: satire)

by berylblue 1 Replies latest social current

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  berylblue

  
  

  WASHINGTON, DC—Citing the need to safeguard "America's most vital institutions and politicians" against potentially devastating attacks, President Bush asked Congress to sign off Monday on a $30 billion funding package to help fight the ongoing War On Criticism.

  	Above: Bush unveils his sweeping new anti-criticism initiative.

  "Sadly, the threat of criticism is still with us," Bush told members of Congress during a 2 p.m. televised address. "We thought we had defeated criticism with our successes in Afghanistan and Iraq. We thought we had struck at its very heart with the broad discretionary powers of the USA Patriot Act. And we thought that the ratings victory of Fox News, America's News Channel, might signal the beginning of a lasting peace with the media. Yet, despite all this, criticism abounds."

  Critical activities, Bush noted, have not returned to pre-Sept. 11 levels, when well-organized, coordinated attacks on his administration were carried out on a near-daily basis. But in spite of the National Criticism Alert Level holding steady at yellow (elevated), administration officials warn of severe impending attacks.

  "We've become too complacent," Attorney General John Ashcroft said. "We've grown accustomed to thinking of criticism as something that only happens to people in other political parties. But this administration needs this funding to counter a very real threat to its reputation."

  Ashcroft said the Justice Department, working closely with the CIA and FBI, has identified more than 300 potential targets, ranging from the Bush Administration's inability to produce the weapons of mass destruction used to justify the war with Iraq to its deficit-ballooning fiscal policies.

  "I doubt I could protect my ongoing Halliburton cronyism from critical strikes with just a few million dollars—especially if it was not accompanied by powerful preemptive legislation," Vice-President Dick Cheney said. "We need to build stronger anti-criticism defense shields in this country. And the time to act is now, before the media say something negative about us."

  If the funding is approved, the Bush Administration will act swiftly to shore up numerous areas of vulnerability. Among the actions: ensuring that the White House is defended against verbal snipers, safeguarding the president's past illicit actions from biographical weapons, and sealing off the largest sources of domestic criticism by securing and patrolling the nation's newsrooms.

  Congressional leaders are already pledging their support for the plan.

  "As government officials, we have an absolute obligation to protect the leader of this country from future acts of criticism," U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) said. "And it will not be cheap, easy, or quick."

  "We're all in this together," Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert said. "You attack one American politician, you attack us all."
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  berylblue

  An oldie but goodie...both from the Onion

  WASHINGTON, DC—Vice-President Dick Cheney issued a stern admonishment to President Bush Tuesday, telling the overeager chief executive that he didn't want to hear "so much as the word 'Iraq'" for the rest of the day.

  Above: Bush asks Cheney for the fourth time Tuesday.

  "I told him, 'Listen, George, I promise we're going to invade Iraq, but you have to be patient,'" Cheney said. "'We need a halfway plausible casus belli. You know that, George. Now, stop bugging me about it.'"

  According to Cheney, for the past three weeks, Bush has been constantly asking if it's time to move troops into the Gulf region.

  "George is calling me, he's following me around in the halls, he's leaving notes on my desk reminding me to let him know if I hear 'any news,'" Cheney said. "He just will not sit still. I actually have a permanent red mark on my shoulder on the spot where he comes up and taps me."

  "'Hey, Dick, is it time yet?'" said Cheney, adopting a Texas drawl in imitation of the president. "'Hey, Dick, can we invade yet?'"

  In spite of repeated assurances that he will be apprised the moment the time to invade arrives, Bush continues to badger Cheney.

  "He knows I don't want to talk about it, but he still somehow manages to find a way to sneak it into conversations," Cheney said. "He'll drop by my office on some pretense—the Kyoto treaty or whatever—and then right before he's about to leave, he'll say, 'Oh, by the way, do you think it's time to get those troops into the Middle East yet?' As if that wasn't his whole reason for the visit."

  Bush has also taken to hanging around certain West Wing hallways, hoping to "accidentally" bump into Cheney as he exits meetings.

  	Above: Messages from Bush pile up on Cheney's desk.

  "Last Thursday, I nearly ran him over as I was coming out of a debriefing with the Joint Chiefs of Staff," Cheney said. "So he says, 'I was thinking of maybe talking to [CIA director] George Tenet, because the CIA helped spark that Kurdish uprising in '96, so maybe we could do something like that again with Iraq.' I said, 'George, I'm doing everything I possibly can to set things up for an Iraq invasion. Try to think about something else—health-care reform, the economy, anything—before I strangle you.'"

  Though he understands and appreciates the president's eagerness, Cheney said his patience finally wore out when Bush called him at home over the weekend.

  "I'm sitting down to dinner, and I get a phone call asking if 'Congress knows they've got weapons of mass destruction,'" Cheney said. "I told him yes, and to settle down. Later that night—it must have been midnight—the secured line rings. I leap out of bed, thinking something awful has happened. It's George, saying that he can't sleep thinking about how right at this very minute, Saddam is manufacturing more weapons of mass destruction, and we're sitting here doing nothing."

  On Monday, Cheney sat Bush down and explained at length the political ramifications of proceeding with a first strike without creating the appearance of approval from Congress and the American people.

  "I said we can do it, but we don't want to at this moment," Cheney said. "'If we just wait a little longer, Saddam is bound to commit some act of aggression or we'll find some juicy al Qaeda ties or something, and then we can make it look like the whole country's behind it. George has got to learn to hold his horses."

  Cheney also explained to Bush that his constant pestering is keeping him from attending to the very work that will make the invasion a reality.

  "Donald [Rumsfeld] and I are working on the U.N. weapons-inspections thing, and we're this close to finding a way to make that a compelling reason, but we just need a little more time," Cheney said. "I told George to go back to the Oval Office and stay there. I also made him put his hand on his heart and promise me he wouldn't talk to me about it anymore."

  Within an hour of sending Bush to his office, Cheney received six e-mails from Bush, all of them forwarded news articles that the president had found online. Among them was an Associated Press story titled, "Lawyers Say Bush Does Not Need Congress To Attack Iraq," accompanied by a message from Bush reading, "dick, have you seen this?!?!?!?!?! [sic]"

  "Of course I've seen it," Cheney said. "Who does he think planted the story?"

  The vice-president is not the only key White House figure Bush has harassed.

  "George is driving me absolutely batty," Rumsfeld said. "I got back from lunch, and there were four voicemail messages from him, then another two on my cell phone. Each one says he has to talk to me about a 'highly confidential subject,' as if I don't know what it is. Condoleezza [Rice] said she's been getting the same thing. He just doesn't seem to understand that we all want war as badly as he does."