Congressional Democratic leaders Sen. Tom Dishwater and Rep. Dick Gimpheart today strongly reiterated their opposition to President Bush's recommendation to deploy a missile-defense shield against what Bush terms "rogue states." Dishwater and Gimpheart not only assailed Bush's vision of "Star Wars"; they challenged Bush to face up to reality and, now, the White House appears poised to respond in dramatic fashion.
"Americans do not want billions of dollars spent on an unproven, scientifically confabulated system that will not and cannot work and that will needlessly heighten tensions with Russia and China," said the minority leaders in a joint press conference. "Having extensively studied the science of sociology, we today feel fully qualified in condemning the misapplication of the science of physics to missile defense and warmongering. Anyone with even a quanta [sic] of intelligence can see how wrong and dangerous Bush is."
Save the Humans has learned that, in response to these withering critiques, President Bush will shortly announce the reversal of his decision to deploy the missile defense system. Taking the Democrats' concerns very seriously, Bush intends to embrace the "big picture," by calling for an immediate moratorium on all scientific research.
An internal White House memorandum obtained by this reporter states, "In light of new evidence presented to the President, he now recognizes the futility of attempting to achieve anything that has not already been achieved. Because the President prides himself on being a man of principle and consistency, the recommendation here is that we shut down not just Star Wars, but all other research that has not already produced a 100% success rate."
The memo continues, "The reality is that the American public wants success not just today, but yesterday. As anything less than this is unacceptable, all unsuccessful projects will cease. As a collateral benefit, government spending on new programs will drop precipitously, allowing us to devote this country's limited resources to solving known problems with known solutions. This approach will also ensure the continued employment of individuals with MBA degrees."
The White House has thus far declined to comment on this matter and on some of the examples described in the memo. Dishwater and Gimpheart, however, told me that they were ecstatic about the President's "measured and pragmatic approaches to solving world problems." These include using leeches to bleed the ill to a cure instead of newfangled antibiotics; using bicycles instead of maglev trains and supersonic planes; employing more scribes instead of creating faster and faster chips for PCs to drive digital and virtual presses; bringing back the New Deal; and replacing the American justice system with the Holy Roman Inquisition.
Copyright © 2001 Steven Mason
5/2/2001
