There's a canker on the presidency--and the Flash has been besieged by loyal readers who pine for a cure.
The Flash suggests a Congressional resolution requiring President Clinton to drop his trousers around his ankles and shuffle about the streets of Georgetown, pleading for forgiveness.
If our elected leaders had embraced this remedy, D.C. pols and pundits might have been prevented from fleeing to studios and word processors to engage in a kind of fevered hand-wringing.
In swallowing the Gospel According to Kenneth Starr, they forgot that grand jury testimony is notoriously flaky. Moreover (the Flash has been saving "Moreover" for a grave occasion such as this), they forgot that an impeachment trial is not a criminal trial, and that there are degrees of perjury, not to mention such things as materiality to consider.
So the Flash watched, semi-transfixed, as the media/political complex methodically embalmed and eulogized Slick Willie, only to wake up to the reality that we proles are more concerned about Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa than the fact that the Leader of the Free World possesses the spastic humpitude of an uncut hound.
We hoi polloi--many of us read the Starr report until our lips grew weary--are not surprised that Clinton lied, because we know all too well that lies are the currency of Washington. And we know that everyone lies about extramarital affairs.
In closing, the Flash offers this quick-hitting primer/analysis of Fellate-gate:
* Clinton has confused the celebrity of the presidency with the celebrity of rock/athletic/film superstardom. He's thinking: Hey, if Magic Johnson and Wilt Chamberlain and Rod Stewart and Ol' Dirty Bastard and Hugh Grant and, for heaven's sake, Charlie Sheen can partake in a saturnalia of the flesh, and the president can't, well, why bother?
Bill, baby, stop thinking with your other head!
* Kenneth Starr is wack.
* Monica Lewinsky has the dubious distinction of being one of the first females in a sex scandal that Playboy doesn't want to photograph. "Nobody wants to see her," a high-level Playboy editor told the Flash. "He didn't even want to see her."
* Moreover, Monica has a death wish. How else can you explain her willingness to absorb the bodily fluids of such a high-risk individual as the Prez?
The Starr Report offers the worst kind of sex education. Monica, baby, doesn't the White House commissary stock dental dams?
* This is all Hillary's fault. During Watergate, one Hillary Rodham, fresh out of Yale law, was employed by the House Judiciary Committee to help research the mores of impeachment. Is that eerie, or what? Then, as First Lady, she so impressively botched health-care reform that Newt Gingrich was inspired to secrete the Contract on America. If Hillary hadn't dropped the ball, the Republicans wouldn't control both houses of Congress and Bill wouldn't need to drop trou and shuffle around whining, "There's no easy way to say I have sinned. . . ."
* David Kendall, the president's lead defense attorney, got his butt kicked a lot when he was a kid.
* Trent Lott should get a chin strap for that petroleum-based product he wears as a toupee.
* Wolf Blitzer is a plonker.
* A source familiar with the case tells the Flash that Starr is now seeking a budget of $40 million to help him prove that the Prez did, in fact, inhale.
Moanin' Lisa
Sheriff Joke Arpaio's deputies were grumbling this week about the latest "death threat" caper in the Joke's office.
On Saturday, September 12, Arpaio spokeswoman Lisa Allen says she was paged, so she checked her voice mail and heard what sounded like two gunshots.
She told the Joke about it, and the Crime Avenger decided to assign two deputies to guard Allen on her date that night.
Monday, the rank-and-file were grousing about the assignment, telling the Flash they considered it a waste of manpower.
Allen, meanwhile, wasn't happy that deputies had said something about it. "Who's telling you these things? Somebody's talking to you who shouldn't be. That's not public information," complained the crack public information officer.
What's Up, Murdoch?
So, what's so attractive about Arizona's Senator John McCain that would make globetrotting sophisticate and media billionaire Rupert Murdoch stop in his tracks to raise money for McCain?
Is it because he and Humble John march under banners of a conservative ideology? Or, could it be because of McCain's chairmanship of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee and his oversight of Federal Communications Commission policies that have life-and-death power over Murdoch's vast empire of broadcasting satellite and cable interests?
Silly questions.
Remember McCain's threat to NBC president Bob Wright? McCain vowed to go after licenses of NBC's local TV stations through the FCC after NBC refused to endorse McCain's TV rating system.
Such brinkmanship might explain why Murdoch staged a fund raiser last week. The New York Times reports that Murdoch sent out invitations sucking up to McCain as "an outspoken leader for the telecommunications industry," and instructing key executives of his News Corp. to pony up $1,000 each to McCain.
No reports on how much was raised.
Murdoch seems to be following in the footsteps of another high-roller conservative with hundreds of millions who embraced Humble John. The Flash, of course, is speaking of onetime savings and loan swindler Charles Keating, who, when asked if major donations he made to McCain were designed to influence McCain on S&L matters, replied, "I hope so."
As one of the Keating Five, McCain later was chastised by the Senate for his association with Keating.
Last Friday's fund raiser for McCain wasn't Murdoch's first encounter with McCain. The two had a cozy session in March last year when Murdoch met with McCain to promote EchoStar, an on-again-off-again Murdoch mega-satellite project.
The Murdoch fund raiser is typical of the McCain strategy: the Center for Responsive Politics reports that more than 50 percent of the $3,293,249 raised by McCain in campaign funds as of mid-August comes from sources outside Arizona.
Another billionaire that McCain has been courting is Microsoft's Bill Gates, who, not surprisingly, is lobbying to have his company's antitrust problems transferred to McCain's Commerce Committee and away from the cantankerous Senate Judiciary Committee.
Roger & She
Roger Clyne, the rakish lead singer for the Refreshments, tied the knot over Labor Day weekend with longtime girlfriend Alisa Jellum.
The vows were exchanged before 200 friends under a full moon and around a full bar on the Clyne family ranch near Sonoita, southeast of Tucson.
Among those in attendance were Refreshments drummer P.H. Naffah, who joined Rog on stage to entertain the celebrants. Also sitting in were Brent Babb of Dead Hot Workshop and Long Wong's manager Jim Swafford.
There were some minor glitches. The bride's hairdresser got nailed for driving on a suspended license, and barely made bail in time to do the bride's 'do. The caterers delivered square tablecloths for round tables. The gunshots and pyrotechnics that randomly went off during the evening were just a couple of reasons an event of this scale couldn't be held within any city limits.
Hey. Everybody knows that the world is full of stupid people.
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