Cherokee Sage Woman

Our dashing (usually away from pesky, fact-obsessed reporters) President, in more of a flop sweat than a flip-flop, changed His mind this week about firing anyone undermining national security for political gain. After all, the only war that matters is not the one to protect Americans from deadly threats from abroad, but the one to protect them from uncomfortable truths at home. In a previous moment of uncharacteristic weakness, our handsome President ordained that He would fire anyone who leaked. This sent Dick Cheney in a covert scurry to CVS in Foggy Bottom for a large box of Depends. Under the new criteria for dismissal from the White House, you have to either say, "I don't agree with you, Mr. President" or be recorded on security video robbing a liquor store. That's what we Americans love about our fine-looking President: He is always a straight shooter. Indeed, in both directions, if necessary. (Of course, after male prostitute Jeff Gannon has been giddily passed around the West Wing for hundreds of joy-filled hours, it may be a stretch to refer to any of them as straight.)



So, now it is clear: you can only be fired from the White House if you are caught breaking the law. Surely, Andrew Card will now be flooded with shady resumes from people wishing to flee the persecution of employers who harbor the wildly outrageous expectation that their workers not excel in competition-level prevarication, much less undermine the security of an entire nation. The crazy libs will argue that the biggest lesson that comes out of the fact that Karl Rove and Lewis "Scooter" Libby were the ones who leaked classified information is that their immediate bosses, Messieurs Bush and Cheney, were actually the ones behind the churlish, illegal payback for Mr. Wilson's disloyal honesty. I, on the other hand, think that the most important lesson is this: Don't go around asking adults to call you "Scooter" if you don't want a tricycle for Christmas.

But, honestly, can't you hear our fabulously cagey President, a year hence, once again raising the bar for termination ever so incrementally higher? After all, He must stay one nimble step ahead of having to penalize, rather than promote, a staff member unfettered by honesty and other quaintly inconvenient weaknesses. Indeed, my gift of prophesy allows you a glimpse into this autumn's "new and improved" post-indictment standard for dismissal:


"No one will be asked to leave the White House unless they commit a crime involving an actual death -- boy howdy, I almost just had my wife Pickles packing! No, let's go ahead and make that two deaths. Also, you don't need to clear your desk until all appeals are exhausted, right up to my new bud and judicial cipher John Roberts, selected with this very nuisance in mind. Oh, and the other condition for getting your butt fired is that Suzanne Somers has to win a Tony award next year for The Blond in the Thunderbird. Tee-hee."

-- President George W. Bush (after cautioning the press that He was not under oath).


Fortunately, we live in a country that doesn't blink when our handsome President flip-flops on the reason for starting war, much less ending employment. Indeed, the only time my fellow godly Republicans got outraged about non-Kerry flip-flops is when the gals from the national champion lacrosse team recently showed up at the White House wearing them. But this is hardly a surprise. As with all things in the White House, it is not important what you do or say, just how you appear. Even though I don't recall any of my dear sisters at Concerned Women for America flipping her navy-blue wig over Jenna showing up at Buckingham Palace wearing jeans and a snarl.
Speaking of those quaint, eager-to-please English people, I imagine that Tony Blair had a rather unpleasant jolt on July 7. In reflecting upon Mr. Bush's pledge to fight the war on terror there, rather than here, it must have finally occurred to Mr. Blair that London, quite unfortunately, isn't here.

According to the BBC, nearly 25,000 civilians have been violently killed in Iraq by overworked troops and overwrought insurgents. That's about eight times the number of civilians killed in the World Trade Center towers by Islamic murderers. So, presumably, the Iraqis have eight times the number bumper stickers and other jingoistic automobile accoutrement than we do. This means that they must have well over 140,000,000 "Support the Troops' Targets" metallic car ribbons. And when you think that the search for their scurrilously indiscernible WMDs has left the people of Iraq with only a handful of rusted Fiats between them, the madrassa carpool may have the only vehicles in Iraq that come close to being armor-plated!

I won't hazard a guess on what color car ribbons the Iraqis have settled upon (if, indeed, they can agree on anything), but when the current Tour de France is over, can people everywhere -- finally -- remove those cheap, plastic canary yellow bracelets? I don't support unattractive fashion fads that masquerade as unctuous causes. That just leads to Catholicism.


Tom Cruise continues his campaign against psychiatry and mood-stabilizing drugs. Verily, it is always sad when someone discounts the merits of what he needs most. It always reminds me when dear brother-in-Christ Jerry Falwell rails against diets. While little Tom the Scientology robot has become a greater source of shocked amusement than First Lady Laura Bush's wildly popular horse masturbation jokes, his PR spokesperson/sibling Lee Anne DeVette tells us that everyone loves and admires her brother almost as much as the glassy-eyed Katie Holmes (as Katie will tell you via her Scientology minder/ ventriloquist, who is a veritable Molly Pitcher with a jug of Kool-Aid). Such panglossian proclamations give me a hunch that Tom's sister interned with former Iraqi Minister of Information under Saddam Hussein just before before rushing back to America to ruin Tom's career. Little Tom is wont to claim that membership in his cult has allowed him to cure hundreds of carefully unnamed people of their various addictions. That is one thing I don't understand about Scientology (well, other than why people join): If being a Scientology zombie cures you of your addictions, why is Kirstie Alley still unable to relinquish a piece of Sarah Lee without leaving welt marks and why is John Travolta constantly turning his Boeing 707 "cockpit" into a saucy double-entendre? Just asking.


Speaking of bearded celebrities who have totally lost the ability to see how they are coming across, how difficult poor Oprah Winfrey's troubled life must be! First, to be born in abject poverty, and then to be sexually molested. And now -- the most humiliating ordeal of all -- not to be permitted to shop when one of Paris's most expensive stores has the temerity to be closed. Oh, the humanity! St. Oprah, the martyr for all avaricious procrastinators, has truly established herself as the Rosa Parks of after-hours, celebrity binge shopping. Apparently, she was rushing into Hermes to buy (I adore Oprah's salt-of-the-earth need to relentlessly drop names) Tina Turner a ridiculously expensive watch. I suppose poor Tina has been reduced to the humiliation of getting her timepieces at Cartier during normal business hours! Perhaps, next time Miss Winfrey is out shopping she may think to pick up a watch for herself. And then learn how to use it. Like the rest of us.



So close to Jesus, He wears a "What Would Betty Do?" bracelet,



Mrs. Betty Bowers


America's Best Christian


A woman known throughout Christendom for her joie d'après vivre