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The president took an honest and sincere step toward covering up the recent questions of intelligence (the CIA's, not his) with his creation of a bipartisan (emphasis on the "partisan") commission this week. But the question remains: Are we supposed to buy this bullshit?

That question aside, and the answer is obviously a resounding "yes," issues still remain about the quality of intelligence the administration is receiving about terrorism. If the CIA thinks there are large deposits of chemical or biological weapons in an underdeveloped nation like Iraq, based, I might add, on some barbershop rumor floating around Nigeria, what does this mean for the safety of the country? Are we pretty much left at the mercy of the incompetence of terrorists? Much like they are left at the mercy of our own incompetence.

It might be easier for the American public if they knew exactly how intelligence is gathered for the purposes of national security. First and foremost, we buy it. Any episode of Starsky & Hutch should display this adequately. Foreign equivalents of Huggy Bears come nosing around our embassies, and back alley deals galore abound.

The second way is the kind we think of it most often: large, burly American national security agents wearing fake beards and dressed in swami hats and Lawrence of Arabia robes. These are the real heroes, the deceitful, backstabbing undercover agents who get the secretest information straight from the horse's mouth by putting their lives on the line in barely plausible disguises. There is no more dangerous job in the world, except for being an employee of Phil Spector. Many is the time some jihad-crazy Muslim terrorist flips out and frisks you to yell out, "Abdul's wearing a wire!" It's all over then, sir.

There is also what the government calls "option three": Kicking in doors of suspected terrorists, arresting them on suspicion and searching their base of operations without warrant. Right now this is still hard to do overseas, with their difficult laws preventing illegal search and seizure, at least in the more Westernized countries and some of the third world, but rollback in constitutionally-guaranteed rights in the states has made it a lot easier to fight terrorism on our own turf. We might have to annex the world before they agree.

So whose balls were dropped on this particular outing? Democrats suggest the administration manipulated intelligence to manufacture consent for an unjustifiable war with Iraq. Plausible, yes, and even the most likely case, which makes it a poor choice to discuss in this column. So I point the blame squarely at the acting schools in this country.

What kinds of intelligence operatives are we turning out? Nervous, jittery young rubes who make poor choices in their acting and offer only an overbaked performance any first-year Hamas fanatic could see through. Our guys show up on their doorsteps, spewing anti-American rhetoric in a British accent because it's all they can do, and the terrorist masterminds of the world are laughing at us. They tell our guys six or seven times a month they're ready to launch a major attack on our soil, when in fact their biggest effort is not to giggle while they discuss fake plans to use dirty bombs and chemical agents.

Hopefully this nine-person distraction Bush is calling a bipartisan commission will get right to the heart of our off-off-Broadway operatives. We're the richest nation on the planet, and our security is something we should not be paying half-price for. I say, shell out the $20 million for Pacino. De Niro, Hoffman, any of these guys. We should at least be able to afford Billy Dee Williams. He was fantastic in Mahogany.

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When they say "we're all family here at the commune," they don't mean it. At least they don't mean they're the kind of family you can move in with when you hit upon hard times. In fact, I don't think they even say "we're all family here at the commune," I think I just heard Red Bagel singing "We Are Family" and possibly misinterpreted it. I haven't been this embarrassed since the similar incident where Mr. Bagel was singing "I Want Your Sex."

By now you're probably asking yourself, "Is this going anywhere?" Yes, indeed it is. And in response to the other question you're possibly thinking, you're correct, I believe that is infected. However I'll let you deal with your private problems while I deal with mine.

Following the disintegration of my marriage and the disruption of life as I knew it, I've spent roughly a month (indeed roughly) living in my desk here at the commune. Fortunately I have a large desk and my small stature allowed for comfortable quarters, but we can't keep cleaning people employed, they all have pretty weak stamina for seeing a small nude man sleeping in a desk drawer. I personally say stay out of my drawers, but since they work for tips and whatever they can find in the desks, the staff and administration of the commune have tossed me out to the streets.

Fear not, good people, I'm no longer homeless. Help has come from a most unexpected source: My nephew Camembert has taken me in. Camembert has a heart as big as all outdoors, just like his thick eyeglasses. Plus, he's living the high life on those disability payments from the government, in no small part thanks to Rok Finger, and I think he remembers that.

Camembert and I make the perfect odd couple, it's quite hilarious. He is a slob and I am a neat freak, minus the "neat" part. I am actually very sloppy, and so is he, but we hate each other so it's kind of like we're neat and sloppy alternately. He is gangly and bookwormish, while I'm suave and popular, at least while inside the apartment. I can walk. He can't.

The two of us being such an odd couple, you can bet I'm always thinking of that play. Camembert, on the other hand, is not as big a fan of Oleanna and doesn't enjoy acting it out as much as I do. I would allow him to play the role of the professor, but I don't fit into the wig and school girl outfit as well as he does. But we have fun, even if he sometimes doesn't.

Being on my own again, with Camembert, reminds me of the old Rokwell T. Finger bachelor days. Being single is not so bad, except for the debilitating loneliness. No woman to nag me, no woman to tell me to clean up my messes and bug me about where I'm going and why am I out so late, no woman to keep me up all night with her crying. Camembert does that all better than Arvelyn ever did. And boy, can he cook! No, he can't.

I've already begun making the place my own, putting in some of my furniture like the pine needle sofa and hanging up some things like my Farrah Fawcett posters. Camembert is quick to point out they're not posters so much as invasive polaroids taken through her window, and I have to agree, then we laugh and I dress him up as a girl and kick him around for a bit.

I'm going to enjoy the single life.

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