Iraq Withdrawal Bill Threatened With White House Vito

Washington, D.C.

Junior Bacon

President Bush visits Congress for last-minute negotiations before the Iraq withdrawal bill Thursday; burly pal “White House Vito” Pantusi brings out his “negotiators” for the visit.

otes along party lines heralded the passing of Congress’ new military budget, which would allow $122 billion in funding with the stipulation that all troops be removed from Iraq by the deadline of March 31, 2008. It was a critical blow to the G.O.P. and the president, who did not concede defeat but instead promised the bill, if it passes the House, would have to face the merciless wall of “White House Vito.”

Presidential advisor and former CEO of the Dallas Quik-Dry Cement Company Vito Pantusi has been working closely with Bush on a compromise that will make all involved parties happy, a White House inside source says, particularly the President Bush party.

“Mr. Pantusi plans on visiting House and Senate Democrats personally with some associates to convince them they’ve voted improperly,” said our source. “His associates are sporting enthusiasts, as anyone can tell by their baseball bats, and Mr. Pantusi is sure he can teach certain Congressmen all about fair play.”

Acquitted on three different charges of influencing a congressional vote with a large tank of piranha fish, “White House Vito” has been an associate of the president since their days together in the Texas business community, and the president has brought in Pantusi as an advisor in hard negotiations in the past. In 2005, with an end-of-year deadline fast approaching, Pantusi assisted in advising the president in negotiating the Andean Free Trade agreement.

“The White House would like to consider this matter resolved-like,” Pantusi said in a follow-up news conference, cracking his knuckles audibly for the press in one of his rare public appearances. Other involved parties declined comment, and quickly shrunk from reporters who approached them too fast with microphones.

Speculation has already begun as to what role Mr. Pantusi and his special “commission o’ negotiatin’ muscle” might play in opposition to the deadline bill. Representatives of the negotiating commission, including White House Vito standing ominously in the background, fielded a few quick questions from reporters on Friday.

“In, uh, response to the question, ah, from the ravishing lady from The Washington Post with the killer rack,” replied Pantusi associate Johnny Lips, “the president is, uh, looking for an amicable solution to the, er, Iraq budgetary disagreement. The president would, uh, prefer to leave the decisions on, um, monetary needs and appropriate troop presence to the, er, military personnel in charge of that there decision.”

Pantuis himself only responded to one question, when a reporter from CNN asked if the president had any doubts about pursuing a war the public increasingly opposes. To which White House Vito answered by throwing his cigar at the trembling reporter and shouting over the microphone, “You want me to come down there and show you some fucking opposition? You like that, tough guy? I should smack your fucking glasses off, numbnuts.”

If the White House chooses to pass the bill, the new budget requires Bush to start bringing troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan within 120 days. If negotiations go roughly with Vito Pantusi, 120 days is also the average length of hospital stay expected for congressmen who have enjoyed a difficult compromise with Bush’s advisor. The Democratic majority in the Senate, however, warned that they would not be scared by White House intimidation.

“It’s the president’s right to respond with Vito to any legislation he disagrees with,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, “but Congress is not without its own powers. If the president tries to force through his own Iraq budget through the Senate after rejecting ours, we’re always willing to respond with Philly Buster.”

The Senator gestured to a husky Samoan page standing behind the speaking Democrats, scratching his goatee and nodding his head ominously.

the commune news is glad we’re not in politics, but we still have to face the scrutiny of “Line Item Vito,” the guy at the supermarket who counts up our goods and tells us to get the fuck out of the express lane. Correspondent Ramrod Hurley is no stranger to cement shoes, although he finds concrete flip-flops more enjoyable for summer.

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Rain, Rain, Go Straight to Hell

Things have been gloomier than usual here at the commune offices, as Flatbush, New Jersey goes through another rain-drenched March. Some have always admired rain, looked into the gloomy darkness overhead and the water fluttering down from the sky and seen it as some kind of cleansing of the earth, a washing-away of the dust and grime coating the planet and the nourishing of its lush green life. I say that’s horseshit. Rain is nothing but the entire population of a city, state, or country being thrown into the swimming pool a teaspoon full at a time.

God’s laughing at us when it rains. That’s right—I accept the Judeo-Christian concept of God, and sometimes He’s a right asshole. If He’s so perfect, couldn’t he find a more productive way of doing whatever rain has to do? Why make plants that grow in the middle of a landlocked mass need water at all? It makes less sense than a movie starring Adam Sandler as a romantic lead. God’s capable of making spiders, who reproduce with hundreds of offspring and spin elaborate webs to feed themselves, but the best he could do to get water around to all the soil is just to drop it out of the sky. I’m surprised He stopped there. Why not just have chicken wings plunge from the clouds whenever people need feeding? Hold your mouths open like turkeys staring at the sky, spit out the bones, there’s no need to even take lunch. It’s better than getting soaking wet through some ill-conceived water delivery system.

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Imagine the scenario, good people: You’ve put on your best work suit, combed your hair into a stylish pompadour that’s a magnet for the ladies, and you strut out the door early in the morning. Then some obstinate little shit pelts you with a condom full of mineral water. I suppose you addle-minded hippies would look up at him and blather on about the inherent beauty of getting pranked by a little preteen bastard. You’d write songs about water balloons and lovers would curl up next to the fire telling each other they sure like the smell in the air after you get socked in the face with a swishy prophylactic. To hell with that. You’ve been punked, nature-lover.

I’m not sure why I alone have this special insight, that rain is nothing but an amateur April Fool’s joke. Perhaps standing at 3-foot-eight-inches and being particularly vulnerable to floods and watery basements makes me warier of water falling from the sky than most people. I don’t accept all of the Bible as a literal interpretation, but I do believe there was a flood. I admit, I skipped around through parts of it, but I think I have the general gist—40 days and nights of rain (yeah, God, real funny), build a monstrous boat, take two of each animal. I’m not sure the wisdom of that, taking a couple of dinosaurs that are bound to eat the rest of the animals, instead of taking your hundred or so best friends. But I’m not concerned with that, I only want to keep a close eye on rain in case it gets the wise idea to do the same thing again. I haven’t exactly kept up with my boat-making skill, and if I were hard-pressed to start collecting animals right now, I would only be able to find a couple of diferent breeds of dogs and a cockatiel.

However, let’s make one thing clear: I will not hear a word against snow. Snow is the antithesis of rain—it’s light and flickering instead of pelting and obstinate; it’s pure and charming, instead of cruel and clothes-ruining. Plus, it sticks together and makes snow men. Anything that allows itself to be shaped by men into mock people cannot be bad. You just try and make a rainman, see where that will get you—a watery retarded man who counts matchsticks easily. Yeah, that was a great idea.

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Nobody Knows How to Have a Good Time Any More

I’m serious, take a look around you. Do you see anybody having a good time? No fair answering if you’re in Cuba or some central-American country. You people live life on a whole different level, and it’s easy to have fun 24-7 when the value of a human life is on par with a bag of Cheetos. I’m talking about folks here on the white side of the world, the one noticeably light on the conspicuous enjoyment of not being dead.

When’s the last time you saw some happy motherfucker tearing down the Vegas strip with the top down, firing a machine gun randomly into the air while the X-ed out girl scout behind the wheel struggles to keep it on the road? Not size last July, I don’t get to Vegas as often as I used to.

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But answer me this, when’s the last time you saw a married father of four welding runners to the bottom of the minivan, and taking the whole family out for a sledding ride down the biggest hill in town and across the lake that may or may not be frozen all the way across? Hardly ever happens any more. My dad used to pull that shit constantly, one time it wasn’t even winter. Back then people knew how to make a game of life and death. You ever see films from back then? Everybody smoked, they didn’t care if they lived or died. When you were pregnant you smoked more, because you were smoking for two. And the cars back then! Seat belts? Why would you want to be strapped down to a flaming hunk of metal when the family in the other car got the ride of their lives, finally seeing what it’s like to fly? Cars back then were awesome, they drove fast, idled heavy and stopped infrequently. Their idea of a safety feature back then was making the cigarette lighter hole narrow enough a kid could only fit two or three fingers in there. No need to burn off all a kid’s fingers just to teach ’em a lesson about curiosity, you know what I’m sayin?

Hell, back then a windshield was an option. If your parents were cheap it meant you got an unobstructed view of the road, and it was like having a dashboard that was four feet deep. Do you have any idea how much shit you could fit on a dashboard like that? Lunch, dinner, a toaster, entire battalions of army men, and more than enough bottle rockets to shoot at any oncoming cars you might see on the drive. The hood was like a wonderland for kids back then. Nowadays what do kids get? A GameBoy and some motion sickness pills. Pardon me if I don’t keel over with envy.

You know what people did back then if they were depressed or had emotional problems? They sure as hell didn’t piss away the hours in some hazy Prozac twilight like they do now. No, back then if you had a problem, you hit the bottle, and you hit it hard. You ever hear stories about somebody’s dad getting ripped on Prozac and tearing around the neighborhood in reverse, all four doors open, lassoing stray neighborhood dogs just for the shit of it? Of course you don’t. Doesn’t happen. But that kind of shit was happening nightly in my house growing up. Those were the days.

Nowadays if you want to have a good time and not spend the weekend in jail over it, you practically have to go down to Mexico with a trunk full of stun grenades and one of those guns that shoots nets like they use on Rush Limbaugh when he goes on one of his painkiller sprees. Down there, they don’t give a shit. It’s like a throwback to simpler times here in the States, back when people were too busy keeping the family alcoholics from getting everybody killed to worry about what you were up to, with your sneaking around at night and painting crosswalks on the freeway and whatnot.

Have we really made progress in all these years? Are you shitting me? Mexico’s a reliable supply of drinking water away from overtaking us as the place to live for free-thinkers and the bold of heart. Don’t say I didn’t warn you when you’re seeing whitebread families from Iowa on the news, getting caught trying to sneak across the desert into Mexico in the dead of night. I give it about five years.

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Quote of the Day

“Be always on the phone, so that when the devil calls, he will get your voicemail.”
—St. Jerry

Fortune 500 Cookie

Just because you don’t like the message, don’t waste your time killing the messenger. John of Lancaster already took care of that for you 500 years ago. New scientific breakthroughs now make it possible to wash your hair while it’s still attached to your head: no more tedious cutting and re-attaching with naval knots. Try to remember: Chex are for breakfast, checks are for paying bills. You will mix those up again this week. This week’s lucky dogs: Lassie’s offspring still living off residuals, all Irish breeds, and the two-legged one-balled variety.

Try again later.

Least Popular April Fools’ Pranks

1.	Entire world repopulated with talking dogs while you slept
2.	Autistic cousin did your taxes for you, but it turns out he’s a music savant
3.	You’re CNN’s Kidnapper of the Week!
4.	Woke up covered in 200 glued-on toupees
5.	Anal rape

Britain Surrenders to Iranian Naval Juggernaut

Buenos Greetos, America! Do you know what time it is? No, I’m serious, somebody replaced my wall clock with half a live chicken and I have no idea what time it is. Come to think of it, I hope to hell that’s a whole live chicken with only the front half sticking out of the wall, because it’s going to freak me out all to hell if it turns out half a chicken is somehow staying alive on my wall. And have you ever had a clock you had to feed? I don’t recommend it. Anyway, forget that I asked, now that I think about it, by the time any of you read this and get back to me, it’ll be an entirely different time and I probably won’t even care then. Let’s just compromise and say it’s Entertainment Police time. Deal? Sweet.