he U.S. may have a new Attorney General by this time next month, one who makes John Ashcroft seem like a reasonable candidate for the job. Alberto Gonzales, possibly the world's most Hilteresque Hispanic-American, is set for confirmation and expected to get all the votes needed for appointment, even though he has still been defending his record on human rights. On Friday, Gonzales attempted to clarify some of his previous statements, including one made in a memo from September of 2001, stating, "America will feast on terrorists' bones when the sun falls on this war."

Gonzales, nicknamed "Francisco Franco-American" by this reporter just now, has been accused of creating the Bush White House position on human rights—summed up by the statement, "Human rights? Huh?" In his former position as White House counsel, Gonzales, miraculously keeping the president out of jail for four years, challenged that prisoners taken without evidence and without due process in the War on Terror were not subject to the same protections as other soldiers imprisoned during wartime under the codes of the Geneva conventions.

In other feats of jaw-dropping "what the fuck," Gonzales challenged the very definitions of torture accepted around the world. Previous definitions, based on ideas of "cruel and unusual punishment," were replaced with the even more ambiguous definition of "excruciating and agonizing pain." At least with this definition, Ashton Kutcher movies are now officially designated torture.

"Unusual punishment? What's so bad about unusual punishment?" defended Gonzales in Friday's seven-hour testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee Friday. "If I get a bare-bottom spanking from Mamie Van Doren, it might unusual, but I say that doesn't qualify as torture. And those guys in Camp X-Ray—they got it so good it ought to be illegal. I mean, it probably would be, if it were on American soil. But you know what I mean."

Asked if the attorney's arguments against the Geneva conventions opened the door for the abuses at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, Gonzales pretended not to hear the question. Asked again, he pretended not to know what Abu Ghraib was. After a lengthy recount of the many incidents of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, Gonzales gave a more definite response.

"Nah. Probably not," said the attorney.

Gonzales then took a firmer stance, saying the pictures of abuse, which he owned plenty of in his personal collection, were "people who were morally bankrupt having fun." At least, continued Gonzales, it "looked like a lot of fun."

The attorney, who had by now pitted out his entire suit with sweat, was asked to clarify the infamous statement on eating the bones of terrorists.

"I was paraphrasing the Jolly Green Giant," answered Gonzales. "Or whoever that guy was. The one whose home was invaded by the tiny terrorist who stole his golden goose. We will use their bones, meaning the terrorists', to butter our bread. That's all I meant to say. I apologize if the meaning was taken that we will actually be eating the bones straight out of their bodies. I don't believe that would be very appetizing for most Americans. Not at all. Anyway, if we do it, nobody has to watch—is that the problem here?"

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter comically threw all his papers up in the air at that point, mugged for the grandstand, and told the people, "Well, I frankly don't see a problem here…"

hiter-than-white white man Red Bagel, founder and sometime-Editor of the commune was awarded his own publication's "You the Man of the Year" Award for the sixth year in a row, to no one's surprise. Bagel has been missing and presumed paranoid since the November re-election of evil incarnate George W. Bush, and Bagel's brother Gay presented the award posthumously to his own brother at a ceremony at the commune offices in Flatbush, New Jersey, even as Bagel's Caucasian manservant Rascal insisted his "master" was alive and willing to accept the award behind closed doors.

Gay Bagel, a miserable shell of a man, praised his brother with backhanded compliments on Red's lifelong career of spending a lot of time on something never once profitable.

"What can we say about Red that has not already been said in the poetry of stoned hippies everywhere," said Gay Bagel, reading from a fill-in-the-blanks form eulogy he acquired from the Internet. "My brother waged a war against the mentally stable everywhere in his attempts to spread the word of liars and morons. Without him around, the world is a little less prone to idiocy. But I've come here to bury Red, not to praise him, if I could but find the body. If I found him alive, then I would have come to bathe him and get him a clean suit, or at least have him cut his fingernails and stop dragging the name Bagel down into the sewers he smells like. I suppose all I really want to say here is: Red, if you are alive, anywhere, there are a lot of bills that haven't been paid yet and nobody can figure out how to get into the commune lockbox. All you here are witnesses—the man is this much closer to being declared dead, and soon I will be the boss of all of you."

And for the first time, the entire commune staff burst into tears at the thought of Red's passing.

Despite the sombering moment at the event, things cheered up when Rascal, representing Red Bagel himself, took the stage and promised us all our fearless editor was in the best of health, and thankful for his sixth consecutive win, making him the only person ever to win the YTMOTY, or "Yitmotty."

"Crikey, don't it beat all?" rattled the Australian manservant, who wore his best T-shirt to the ceremony. "Red misses y'all, I can assure ya, and soon as he feels it's 'all clear' to return to the surface, he's gonna join us for a three-week binge party of nothin' but lager, mates! Now… what say we drink up, for Red's sake?" Rascal, already drinking heavily before the announcement, devolved into a parade of Australian caterwauling understandable to no one, Australian or otherwise.

The event continued on into early evening hours, until most of us had drunken ourselves into a haze and all efforts to keep Omar Bricks away from the stereo finally failed. As 1980s nostalgia bombarded us through twin speakers, a few reporters spoke well of Red Bagel and his missing ass.

"There will never be another like Red Bagel—a man entirely devoted to his vision of a better America," said former Acting Editor Ramrod Hurley, now acting like a drunk. "An America of tomorrow, without fear and prejudice, without the suffering of the common man, and with a government forthright and honest with its own people. And now that he's gone, I call dibs on the boss job."

Hurley was bound, gagged, and wrapped in garish paper. The stamp on his head ordered us not to open until X-Mas, and I had to heartily agree.

If I go into a restaurant at ten o'clock at night, and they are not closed this time, I should be able to order a venison sandwich and get it. I have said it before, I'll say it again.

Good people, is this America, or communist Italy? We live in the richest and freest nation on earth. Freest? That doesn't look right. Free-loving? Wrong implications, but I see little alternative. You know what I mean—we love freedom. We have endless resources and, Lord knows, if I can afford a venison sandwich, there is no good reason why I should not get it.

Don't tell me it's Christmas Eve, missy. I didn't order a calendar. I ordered a venison sandwich. Venison has to be the fifth or sixth most popular kind of meat in the world. How can a national chain like McDonald's run out of it so fast? That's pretty ridiculous.

As you can guess, this really did happen. I had something called a "Big Mac" instead, some kind of cow meat or something, with salad dressing slathered all over it. I prefer my meats not to be slathered. Basted, or painted, perhaps. Never slathered, and certainly not drenched. Unless it's with barbecue sauce, but this wasn't. So yes, a nasty cow meat sandwich with slathered-on salad dressing. I promptly threw up. That was my Christmas present.

Camembert and his girlfriend Elvis were quite embarrassed. I think they just like to challenge me now. I'm paying for Christmas dinner, I reminded them, I'm the one who should be embarrassed about throwing up. But I wasn't. Because as I said, they didn't give me what I originally wanted—my stomach doesn't compromise. It wanted venison, and it knows the difference between deer meat and cow meat slathered with salad dressing. McDonald should be ashamed of himself. I tried to get him on the phone, but those disrespectful slacker employees just kept calling him a clown. In my day, we respected our wealthy corporate founders.

I'm not sure, good people, what it is about Christmas that puts me in the mood for a tasty venison sandwich. It has long been my cross to bear. That and the large cross in my backyard, but I'm not finished building that quite yet.

Jesus had a cross to bear, too. It was called being the son of a popular Fellow. It's not easy being God's son. Everybody expects a lot from you, and they will not stop mentioning all the great things your Dad has done. And what have you done? That's all they want to know. And that's why Jesus made the venison sandwich—his gift to mankind.

Well, to make a bad column short, I got my venison sandwich finally, no thank you, McDonald's. It was Camembert and Elvis's gift to me. I was touched, right to the very heart. Girl Elvis apparently went and slaughtered a deer in the middle of the night just to make it for me. That's what Christmas means to me—deer meat, wrapped in a bow.

Their gift? I got them a subscription to Friday Magazine, the magazine for people who really like Fridays. It was the only thing I could get on Christmas morning at 7 a.m., they have a 24-hour subscription hotline. But I believe they both like Fridays.

What? Should I knock myself out for a gift on Christmas morning? I don't even have the sandwich anymore. I thought it was quite generous of me, considering.

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