resident George "Whitewash" Bush tried to put to rest the media uproar over his service record in the national guard with a brief prepared statement Friday. Bush revealed his mixed feelings for the Vietnam war, saying once and for all his personal feelings about the conflict stemmed from the apparent lack of oil or natural resources for plundering in the country.

"Before I have alluded to personal reservations about the Vietnam war," the statement began. "These were private concerns, but since the media is preoccupied with the past, let me at last tell everyone I believe the war in Vietnam was misguided. I believe any military action that puts men in danger, when there is no profit to be made in oil or rich natural resources, or a lone figurehead to be vengefully removed from power, is wrong."

It was a dangerous statement for a war-hungry president during an election year, an area that could be mined by election-greedy Democrats and any forgettable third party candidates who might appear on public television or radio to complain. Even conservatives who traditionally back the president expressed initial worry about the president's dedication to the war on terror, or plans for a second term war on Iran, Syria, and Rendibaba, a little shit of an island unknown to everybody but rich in coal.

"Make no mistake," press secretary Scott McClellan responded, fielding questions from frothing reporters, "the president has no doubts about military action in Iraq or any country that supports terrorism. The president stands firm on wars for vengeance and resource exploitation. In Iraq we had both."

And the war on terror?

"That falls under the column of vengeance," assured McClellan, drawing a line with his hand. "Column A, vengeance. That's like Iraq, or Panama or something. Florida. Column B, we're talking exploitation of natural resources. President's all for that. I mean, really for that. Sometimes we have to talk him out of invading ally countries like Mexico. Loads of fat, juicy resources down there. Make his mouth water."

The president's statement could be seen as a desperate act by an administration beleaguered with a bad news week, including continued focus on intelligence mistakes and a plea from WMD inspector David Kay for the president to admit there are no weapons in Iraq. A greater problem during the week was the unearthing of questions about Bush's service in the National Guard during the year from 1972 to 1973, and records could only prove he served nine days in uniform that year, unless you count the Good Humor Man outfit he wore during a summer job.

For supporters of the president, the hope is the statement, no matter how unexpected, will allow the discussion to slip out of public light and turn national attention toward things the president likes, such as apathy, or J. Lo-Affleck gossip-dishing. For Democrats, many are optimistic that the statement will further entrench the president in an uphill battle to explain his role in the Iraq war.

"Ya-wa-hoo!" screeched Democrat presidential nominee front-runner John Kerry, who then proceeded to do a sort of jig most resembling a Riverdance theme. Further questions were not answered as Kerry hopped, twisted, and scuttled into the streets outside, in the direction of the setting sun, presumably hoping others would join him as in a Dr. Pepper commercial.

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Dorothy said there's no place like home, but I would say that wartime Yugoslavia can't be all that different. No, dudes, I'm not a homebody. My thoughts don't turn to charming holiday gatherings around the fire with the ones I love since it usually involves a lot of alcohol and the fire involves the firecrackers someone tried to light by cooking them in the oven.

I would say my family's strange, but that's everybody's family. My family is homicidally manic-deppressive—there, that at least sounds more original. Seriously, my family is always happy when I come back to Bellmont for Christmas, but catch any of them on the right day and they're happy when the mail shows up. They're fundamentally unhealthy enablers of every drug habit you could name and they derive pleasure from each other's pain. Which is all fine, since that's how I am, but it's real dangerous to put us all in the same place.

First, there's my dad, Fozzy Coleman—dad somewhere got the impression that he was black, and even more odd, that he's Ike Turner. Dad rules the house with an iron thumb, an iron thumb being some gardening device he got for Christmas 20 years ago that spreads mulch. My favorite holiday memory of dad was that year we converted to Judaism. Mom made soggy cornbread and accidentally poisoned the turkey gravy with make-up remover, and when dad found out he was so pissed he threw the menorah like a trident and it stuck in the wall. The bright side was that it worked so well we use it to hang the Christmas stockings still.

Then there's my mom, who's great when she's sober, if you can be there during that time from 8 to 8:15 a.m. When she gets drunk she says all the things normal moms only think, like, "I had plenty of chances to drown you, Clarissa," and, "By my calculations, you still owe us about $359,000—oh, what, you thought the room and board were free rides?" My mom's name is Bunny, but dad always calls her Bunny Coleman like it's one word. Like, "Bunnycoleman, who ate all my fucking French toast?" Or, "Get my bath ready, Bunnycoleman."

It's hard to complain about my brother and sister, they're not really to blame for anything—between having my parents for their parents and having my shadow to live in all their lives, it's amazing they aren't screwed up.

My brother, Randy, doesn't let us call him Randy anymore since he joined that cult in the compound next door to mom and dad. At least he didn't have to go far to get brainwashed. He prefers to be called Toot now, and he's actually pretty nice, the nicest one of the bunch. He curls up in a ball and chants whenever mom and dad fight now, he tells them they have bad Chaka Khan or something, some kind of karma rip-off the cult made up, and the worst thing he does is steal from mom and dad to give to the cult so they can build that glass temple of theirs. Which is all fine by me, I never take more than $20 home when I go anyway.

My sister's a bit more peculiar. She never had the looks or talent to be an actress like me, so she was driven into this weird-ass obsession with grades and scholarships and stuff. She went to Harvard like that Good Will Hunting guy and majored in lawyering. Now she works for the ACLU and writes books on feminism in her spare time, really spaced-out shit. She doesn't come home too often, actually, but she sends self-help books and fruit baskets.

I guess, more than anything, this time of year is about forgetting your family is clinically sociopathic and learning to keep your temper in check long enough to sit down for a single Christmas dinner. To gather around the tree, open up crappy presents, and pretend you like at least one of the things. To sleep in your old room and act like you don't hear your dad getting nasty with your mom, shouting, "Take me to town, Bunnycoleman!" in the room right next door. But at least when you hear that, you know it's just another ten minutes until everyone gathers in the living room around the kitchen fire and opens their presents. And that's as much family as anybody gets these days.º more columns

"I remember it just like it was yesterday, the summer that my brother Goose and I spent trying to build our own airplane. We had it on good authority that none other than the Great Gildersleeve himself would be making a public appearance in St Louis in a month's time, and we weren't about to consider the option of not being there. We begged mom and dad for weeks, but they failed to realize the importance of this event, or the relative insignificance of the 36-hour drive to St Louis. Perhaps if we'd had Stephanie on our side we could have turned the tides, but she was strictly a Fibber McGee girl and she distanced herself from the negotiations, most likely because she was angling for a new bike for her birthday. So it remained for Goose and I to find our own means of transportation to St Louis, and a homemade airplane sounded as good as any.

Our first prototype was a simple model consisting of an old mattress we found in the garage with a red racing stripe painted up the side. And it may have gotten the job done if it weren't for Goose, who was scared by a bee when we were hoisting it up onto the roof and let go of the mattress-plane early, which slid off the roof and into our neighbor's pool. Similar was the fate of prototype number two, an old garbage can tied to a pogo stick, which slid down the roof while Goose was climbing in and ended up putting a big dent in the hood of Dad's car. Goose caught pure hell for that mishap, and I had to join the 4H Club just to provide an alibi as to where I was that afternoon.

Goose thought we should go with one of his designs for our third prototype, and I humored him although I was doubtful because of Goose's well-documented lack of imagination. Prototype three ended up being a big cardboard box with a picture of an airplane taped to the side, and all I have to say about that is I'm glad Goose broke my fall. He's probably lucky he sprained his ankle as well since Mom was pretty steamed at Goose for cutting up the "A" volume of the family encyclopedias the way he did.

After that mom and dad both forbade us from attempting any more flights to St Louis, and we ended up having to listen to the Great Gildersleeve on the radio instead while Goose was propped up on icepacks. It probably would have been more fun to be there in person, but I imagine then we would have missed the fun that night when we heard that great crash outside and all ran out to find dad in the driveway amidst a mangled pile of homemade airplane parts."

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