How I Spent My Summer Vacation

President George Bush: "We like to take a month or so down here to the ranch in Crawford. It sure is a beautiful place and it beats the daylights out of Washin'ton. But when you're President, ya don't really have a vacation, if ya know what I mean. The world keeps turnin' and ya gotta keep up with it in meetin's and on the phone. But the ranch is a good place to mix business with pleasure. Like the other day when Lance Armstrong came by for some bikin'. That Lance is a good ol' Texas boy... Did y'all know he won that French bike deal eight or nine times?... Anyway, I was out back with Rumsfeld when ol' Lance came around the house and saw us. 'Am I interruptin' anything?' he asked. I looked at him and said, 'We're plannin' World War III.' Lance's eyes got all big and he asked,'World War III? What're we gonna do?' I shot him a look and said,'We're gonna kill a hundred forty million Muslims... and one blonde with big hooters.' He got this confused look and asked, 'Why are we gonna kill a blonde with big hooters?' I looked over at Rummy and said, 'See? I told ya no one would care about a hundred forty million Muslims.' ...hee-hee... We laughed on that one all afternoon. Hey, on your way out, ya'll oughta keep a lookout for Joan Baez. Someone tol' me she's givin' a free concert down by my mailbox. Gotta go.. I'm on a beer run for the chairman of Halliburton. ... hee-hee... Jus' kiddin'. See y'all back in D.C." .... Grief-Diva Cindy Sheehan: "Don't you watch TV? I'm Cindy Sheehan. Everybody knows what I've been doing this summer. I'm a great story... all day and every day! It's hard to believe this whole thing started about a month ago as a simple reunion of some of my unemployed friends from the '60's. We thought we'd kill a month camping in a pasture in the middle of Nowhere County, Texas, reminisce about Woodstock, undermine the war effort and just generally try to piss off the President. Anyway, we were hitting the bong in the car on the way over from Vacaville listening to Air America when I...I mean, someone had this big idea! What with the White House press corps living right up the road in the Waco Econo-Lodge... and none of us having anything better to do all day long... we figured I... me, Cindy... could get their attention... and I could get lots of TV time... as the mother of a dead war hero. I... I mean, we... also figured, since the press doesn't like America any more than we do, I could make all kinds of outrageous and stupid statements unchallenged... especially if I was crying. Well, it worked out better than I... er, we... ever imagined! Thanks to a five-dollar bushel of onions and the freedom fighters who killed my son, I've been on the air more than Regis Philbin, and everybody knows who I am. I should have my book and movie deals signed in the next couple of days. And it looks like the 'Pity-Cindy-Palooza Tour' is a 'go' in September! The only downside so far is that most of the people who like me are in Syria, my family thinks I'm crazy, my husband just divorced me and Karl Rove gave my mother a stroke (Howard Dean told me so, and he's a doctor). Anyway, my 'fifteen minutes' are just about up, so I've got to hurry. My handlers tell me the President is heading to the Crawford Brew-Thru, and I need to get over there. I've still got to get into make-up and the van is running, so I can't talk now. But if you haven't had your fill of Cindy, you can find me all over the cable news shows all weekend... or just catch my act Monday on the Today Show. Katie loves me!".... The American Marine in Iraq: "How the hell do you think I spent my summer? Not that I'd expect you to find out from the New York Times or that AP reporter hiding under his bed at the Baghdad Hilton, but we've been pretty damn busy... and it hasn't exactly been a vacation. Between killing the sand-rats pouring in from Syria and trying to avoid the Iranian bombs planted in the roads, we're building schools and hospitals, training Iraqi soldiers, digging wells for people who never had fresh water and pretty much just buying these people some time to stand on their own two feet. It would all go a lot smoother if the only people taking shots at us were over here and not on CNN. At least here we can return fire. I'm not complaining, though. Everyone here volunteered for the job and we're doing good things. And I'm grateful my mother would never make an ass of herself all over the TV back home. But, man, now that you mention it... I sure could use some cold beers and a couple days off."....

A New Broom Sweeps Clean

Kofi Annan was not happy when John Bolton arrived at the United Nations last week. And the Secretary General's not alone. Gangsters and thugs from Crapistan and Imakruk to Kiikbaak and France know why President Bush sent Bolton to sit in America's chair inside Kofi's Fun House. And they're sweatin' bullets and spittin' up snakes about the sunshine that would expose their sweet scam. Bolton's a smart, tough guy. He's got his orders, he's had all of his shots, he's got the right attitude. And you can bet he has a plan. He would have been in New York months ago but for the pantywaists in the Senate who never would allow a vote on his nomination. But better late than never.... Now it's time to roll up the sleeves and probe the rot that killed the United Nations. And there is a lot of it. The UN is nearly as old as the bombing of Hiroshima, but hasn't been nearly as effective. The first Secretary General of the UN was Alger Hiss, then-soon-to-be a convicted felon who would spend 44 months in prison back when dirty, highly-connected public officials went to prison. Over a span of sixty years, the United Nations has failed in its mission as a peacekeeper and as a positive driver of democracy. In fact, the UN serves only as a thin veneer of legitimacy and as an enabler for the worst people on the planet. The UN's most notable achievement was realized in their work with the terror group Hezbollah to successfully kidnap Israeli citizens. Yet despite such cleverness, they can't figure out how to deliver food to starving people. The UN sends "rape counters" to Sudan in order to keep score for those back home and then sends their own paid rapists to the Congo. The UN Human Rights Commission is a bad joke that includes the representatives of oppressive regimes in Libya, Cuba and Sudan. The UN expects the US to bear 22% of the organization's costs, but they can't pull themselves together enough to put some heat on the likes of Saddam Hussein, enforce their own resolutions and help us avoid a war. Why? Because many of these "friends-of-ours" have been on the Iraqi dictator's payroll for years, happily slicing their own personal-piece-of-cheese off of the "Oil-for-Food" program. The United Nations' sixty year record of astounding failure, unconscionable treachery and waste makes one wonder if the place needs a reformer like John Bolton, a Special Ops surprise party or a tactical nuclear strike.... But already there's some good news. Less than a week after Ambassador Bolton (now, there's a two word combination that will make Senator Voinovich cry) arrived, a Russian UN official named Alexander Yakovlev was doing the "frog walk." Alex-in-ankle-irons has been stripped of his diplomatic immunity and will plead guilty to charges of wire fraud and money-laundering as a result of the ongoing probe into the "Oil-for-Food" scandal. Yakovlev, the procurement officer for the dicey deal, pocketed over $900,000 in kickbacks from contractors, making him one of the richest Russians on Riker's Island. Next up will be Cypriot Benon Sevan, the director of Saddam's global bribery scheme (and the Secretary General's longtime friend), even though he only pocketed a paltry $147,000. When caught, he claimed the money was a gift from his dead aunt. Benon has already indicated he'll be a stand-up guy and spill his guts by "naming names." Look for this loaf to eventually lie steaming on Kofi's carpet. These are colorful times at the United Nations. It's going to be fun to watch the "reform process" unfold and it should give us a lot to learn from. And maybe, just maybe, when we put enough of these twisted bastards away, we can shut it down, write it off as a bad idea of epic proportions and start associating with a better class of people.... Of note: Peter Jennings, the last of the big three network news anchors, died at home Sunday evening. The cause of death was lung cancer. Dan Rather blamed Karl Rove. Over the course of his 40-year career and his tens of thousands of stories around the world on ABC, Peter Jennings taught us only that we shouldn't smoke.