n a staunch memo from the White House, written on the president's customized Wild Thornberrys stationary with the head "From the Desk of George II," the president issued a decree confirming the controversy over intelligence errors was at an end.

"Let it ring forth from the Oval Office, loyal Americans," the memo stated, all i's dotted with smiley faces, "that the alleged problem with intelligence has been resolved. We shall not address these topics again under penalty of whatever we can do to you."

The stern warning stems from revelations that Bush used unconfirmed reports of Saddam Hussein attempting to buy uranium in Africa in a Jan. 28 State of the Union address. The report later proved a forgery, and not even a good forgery, forgery critics have reviewed. The misstatement is the first public proof of inaccuracy in Iraq intelligence claims against the president, if you exclude the obvious lack of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq at all. Critics of the president—you know, non-Republicans—were quick to attack the false claim in the wake of recent information.

"Mr. President, for the American people, I ask you, Where are these weapons of mass destruction?" accused Democratic presidential nominee Dennis Kucinich in a fund-raiser only he attended.

White House officials were caught off guard by the public story revealing the inaccuracy of the uranium claim, and pointed to the CIA as the culprit. In their estimation, the CIA is responsible for verifying every statement the president is to say before he says it, or make it true in the aftermath once he has said it. CIA Director George Tenet, as captain of the rotting ship, took full responsibility for the error. According to other CIA insiders, Tenet had previously made White House speechwriters remove an Oct. 7 reference to the same forged documents until it could be verified, but failed to intercede on the president's behalf in January.
The backlash came in a form of public outcry about the legitimacy of intelligence collected by the CIA, and a frustrated Bush responded by saying he retained faith in Tenet, who was responsible for his false declarations, and that American intelligence was in good hands, describing it as "darn good." Political pundits were on the offensive again however, noticing that Bush stopped short of calling the intelligence "the bee's knees" or "rootin' tootin'."

The presidential decree, the first of its kind, was released Saturday, following a failed attempt the week before to urge the nation into silence by calling the matter "closed." The decree, while not a Constitutionally-viable change in public policy and holding no legal ramifications for the disobedient, could be the first in a series of presidential changes in lawmaking to enforce the will of the president over his subjects. Which is how Bush sometimes refers to his constituents.

White House mouthpiece and new meat Scott McClellan defended what some considered a presidential overstepping of duties.

"His will is divine and not for us to question," said McClellan Saturday. "He is merciful and wise. Your opinions to him are like the gnats buzzing around the head of the large and noble wildebeest of the Serengeti plain."

It could be neither confirmed nor denied at press time whether wildebeests roamed the Serengeti.

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"In the glory days of childhood I could sit for hours and stare up at the sky, provided it was dark. I would count the stars, lose count, start over from scratch, lose count again, swear very loudly, give up, and just look at the moon.

An acquaintance of mine, Arch Hofstetter, would laugh rudely when I said one day we'll colonize the moon. He told me we'd never step foot on the moon, which I argued with. I had imagination and optimism, hope for the future. I told Arch surely one day science would be advanced enough to take a man to the moon. Again, he assured me:

'We'll never walk on the moon. I bet you a million ka-billion dollars.'

Later, Arch and I were stationed together in the final days of World War II. Just lying on our backs in some cold German minefield, afraid to move for getting shot, and we'd lay still and lazily talk about the moon and the stars. I talked about rocket propulsion and nuclear weapons, telling Arch someday mankind would get to the small gray orb floating over our heads.

'Trust me, we'll never walk on the moon. I bet you a million ka-billion dollars.'

Well, next time I saw ol' Arch Hofstetter was 1969, roughly September. He was getting out of a taxi and I was getting in, one of those strange coincidences perfect for anectdotal stories.

'I suppose you saw the T.V.? Read the newspapers?' I asked him with smug confidence. 'We put a man on the moon, Arch. I knew we could do it.'

Naturally I didn't expect Arch to get out a check and scribble in 'a million ka-billion dollars' or anything, but I didn't appreciate his reaction at all when he said: 'All I said was that we'd never get to the moon, Sampson, you and me together. I never said nothin' about other guys.'

I hate when people do that!

Arch Hofstetter died about a year later. Doctors say it was a bad heart and unhealthy lifestyle, but I think he realized we still had a good number of years left in which I could've found a way to get to the moon and dragged him, even involuntarily, and there ain't no way he could afford a million ka-billion dollars for a lousy bet."

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Anyone who knows anything about me (kids with book reports: attention) knows I have two mortal enemies: Lindsay Wagner and computers. Of course, one is a dumb electronic appliance and my fear and hatred is just an irrational phobia; and then there's computers, and my job forces me to learn to work with them.

It's still no excuse for the teamster-like attitude of my computer. This computer wouldn't work if I threatened to replace it with cheap foreign labor. It starts slow, it runs slow, it even turns off slow. And let's not get started about the mail—actually, let's do; my column needs filling up this week.

All I can say is they've hired a real slacker to deliver my e-mail, 'cause I'm the last to hear about anything in this office. I never get any memos, no electronic Christmas cards, I never even get any of Rok Finger's daily barrage of ethnic jokes. Either I'm the biggest outsider in the commune offices (and with Bludney Pludd around that role's already taken) or I've got the world's worst e-mail delivery system.

Come to think of it, I've never even received my welcome e-mail from that Bago guy. Just how long has this electronic Ferris Bueller been pulling a fast one on me? For all I know he could've unplugged the connection to all the other computers on the first day and the dildo has been loafing ever since.

I'd like to teach that biatch a lesson. I should see if there's some kind of program for doing that—send in some sort of hellfire-spitting preacher of the Internet world to punish him for disregarding my mail. A computer virus or something that acts like the drill sergeant from Full Metal Jacket on big puss internet couriers. I'd like to see that smooth jackass piss his electronic self when that program storms in all, "What is your major malfunction, Private Clarissa Coleman's E-mailman? I've shit things with more gumption, numbnuts!"

Boy, I'm excited about it the more I consider it. There must be some kind of program out there like that. Some kind of Equalizer-type computer software that settles things up even with asshole electronics, and keeps it all on the down-low. I asked around the commune who I would speak to about that, our tech support people, but everyone acts like I'm joking and keeps saying they want to see where I'm going with it. Maybe I'll have to place an add in a newspaper or magazine—that's what you had to do for the A-Team.

I'm not an idiot, you know. Just to make that clear. I know there's not really a little guy inside the computer with a college dorm-style apartment, just lying around, drinking beer and watching Software Gone Wild instead of delivering my e-mail. It's all real complicated computer shit I can't possibly fathom, so I translate in my own terms when talking to you. It's like the ending of Stephen King's It, when It was so completely cool and amazing you can't possibly really see it, especially not in a made-for-TV movie, so they just cheap out and make it a big spider. Man, that was suck-city.

It's real important that I start getting my e-mail. Not only do I have fans out there who want to contact me, and I'm not about to give my address out to such knobs, but I also have this big new show about to start and I'll need every possible communiqué possible. Not only for my own satisfaction, but to make sure I can fire off complaints and suggestions for script changes, all of that stuff, to the producers. So that guy needs to get off his metaphysical ass or get replaced real fast.

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