Newspoem 18 May 2002

blue news 2

It is the second day of damage control for the White House after the airliner of accusations of at best incompetent intelligence gathering collided with the tower of the president's bid for credibility. Though the president's approval rating, as ascertained by Time magazine's poll of 50 Republican oil company executives, remains high.

Newspoetry went to the White House to get the inside scoop.

NewsPoetry: So, guys, how about releasing some documents and facilitating an investigation whose outcome might help prevent future terrorist attacks?

Ari Fleischer: A broader probe into administration actions before September 11 could lead to a breach of national security, compromising the war on terrorism.

NewsPoetry: The American people have every right to compromise Bush's war on terrorism, since we are funding it and fighting it. Anyway, the goal of the probe into the failure to prevent the terrorist attacks is to compromise terrorism, not war. Although, admittedly, capturing terrorists before they attack might compromise a war on terrorism, the same way penicillin might compromise pneumonia.

Ari Fleisher: Such an inquiry could become a fishing expedition or another endless waste of taxpayer money in an open-ended congressional investigation.

NewsPoetry: The war on terrorism could become a fishing expedition and another endless waste of taxpayer money in an open-ended military engagement.

Donald Rumsfeld: It is not physically possible to defend in every place, at every moment... against every conceivable technique.

NewsPoetry: No, not even a multi-trillion dollar missile defense system could do that. But so what? All that was actually necessary was to defend the Pentagon and southern Manhattan against a small number of men armed with plastic knives passing through security checkpoints in broad daylight.

Administration Official: Critics are crossing a moral line in suggesting that Bush could have prevented the attacks but did not.

NewsPoetry: Bush is crossing a moral line in bombing Afghanistan, a country whose population was already on the verge of starvation before foreign aid was suspended so that yellow food parcels then yellow cluster bombs might be dropped.

Dick Cheney: Criticism is thoroughly irresponsible and totally unworthy of national leaders in a time of war.

NewsPoetry: Disallowing criticism is irresponsible and unworthy of national leaders in a time of war. War is irresponsible and unworthy of national leaders in a time of criticism. I guess what I'm saying, Dick, is that I disagree.

Ari Fleischer: Anytime anybody suggests or implies to the American people that this president had specific information that could have prevented the attacks on our country on Sept. 11th, that crosses the line.

NewsPoetry: If this president had specific information that could have prevented the attacks on our country on Sept. 11th, that crosses the line.

Ari Fleischer: Republican New York mayor Michael Bloomberg called the White House, got Bush's side of the story, and then publicly praised the president. Bloomberg led, Bush's critics, such as Hilary Rodham Clinton, divided.

NewsPoetry: Bloomberg followed.

President Bush: Washington is the kind of place where second-guessing has become second-nature.

NewsPoetry: Er, forgive me Mr. Bush, are you saying we should only guess once?

Laura Bush: It is very sad that people would play upon the emotions of the victims' families, or the emotions of all Americans.

NewPoetry: Exactly. Thank you.

Condoleeza Rice: I don't think anybody could have predicted the terrorists would use an airplane as a missile.

NP: Whether or not you think, the Minneapolis FBI Office predicted that terrorists could use an airplane as a missile. Or see "The Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism" at http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Sociology-Psychology%20of%20Terrorism.htm.

Geez.

I'm getting nowhere with you people.

Can I smoke in here?