en. Hillary Rodham Clinton apologized this week for referring to Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi as a "cock-smoking son of a bitch" in a speech at a Democratic fund-raiser earlier in the month. Insisting the statement was taken out of context, the former first lady explained that she was merely attempting to liven up her speech by making humorous reference to the deceased leader's man-pleasing proclivities.

Clinton's bizarre comments came while speaking in support of Senate candidate Nancy Farmer. The former first lady introduced the aspiring senator to the fund-raiser crowd with a comparison to Gandhi, suggesting that both had blown more men than the A-bomb. The stunned silence of the room turned to nervous laughter when the former first lady followed her comment with an explanatory "blow job" facial expression using her tongue and cheek.

The resultant public outcry once newspapers picked up on the story led to a prompt public retraction from the New York senator.

"Mahatma Gandhi was a great man, and I sincerely apologize if I ever gave any indication to the contrary," Sen. Clinton stated in apology. "He was a true gift to humanity."

"You can ask anybody whose choad he smoked," added Clinton after a brief pause.

The outrage incensed by Clinton's previous statements flared up like a gas-soaked Buddhist monk when word of her apology hit the street.

"I'm visibly offended," blustered Tonight Show joke writer George Mattson. "Everybody knows Gandhi material is my thing. If she thinks she can horn in on my comedic territory, she's got another thing coming. I've got years worth of 'Damn, Chelsea Ugly' jokes saved up. Years. Also I've also been meaning to say that Hillary looks suspiciously like she should be Bill's mother. Now I'm going to say it."

"Hillary has been trying to inject humor into her public persona lately," explained publicist Aria Hershberg. "She's understandably tired of coming off as the prototypical lesbian stuffed shirt in mannish shoes, and who can blame her? Just play along, trust me. She's still new at this and it can take a while for an adult to develop a personality belatedly, just give her a little time. And actually I thought the thing she said about the giraffe's gynecologist was kind of funny. Maybe you had to be there."

Displaying a unique talent for shoveling shit straight into an oncoming hurricane, Sen. Clinton has dug herself deeper with each successive quote following the incident.

"Listen, listen, I have admired the work and life of Mahatma Gandhi and have spoken publicly about that many times," explained Clinton at a recent charity dinner. "What I said the other day was just a lame attempt at humor. I sincerely apologize for suggesting the honorable Mahatma Gandhi would tongue your balls for a dollar."

After a relieved sigh from diners, Clinton continued. "What I should have said was 'Mahatma Gandhi's mama so ugly she could knock the dot off a Hindu at twenty paces!'"

In spite of recent public relations setbacks, Clinton's attempts at developing a sense of humor show no signs of flagging. In the last week, Sen. Clinton has spoken out in support of legislation "to make math easier for retards" and has gone public with the incredibly dated quip that "the next time I see Michael Gorbachev, I'm gonna wipe that thing off his head. What's up with that thing, really?"

n an unapologetic display of mortal hubris, monkeyesque president George W. Bush took the road less respected by using a little-known process known as "recess appointment" to install accused racist and anti-abortion fanatic Judge Charles Pickering to the federal appeals court.

Choosing to bypass confirmation, a candidate named by recess appointment will not need to be confirmed for the position until January 2005, which is fine for Pickering if Bush blusters his way back into office, not so fine if he's ran out of town on an electoral rail. Pickering and five other nominees for court positions have been the focus of an ire-filled debate between Democrats and Republicans as one accuses the other of doing things most Americans wouldn't approve of if they cared.

Pickering's stellar record includes a history of supporting an amendment to ban abortion, several reversals on decisions made in his court, tendencies to reduce protection of an individual's right to vote, and verbally chiding those who seek protection for civil rights in cases of race discrimination. The judge also has a history as a young man of supporting segregationist politics, and was coincidentally appointed by Bush the weekend before the federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

Fellow Mississippian, Sen. Trent Lott, forced to step down in 2002 after showing support for late Sen. Strom Thurmond's early segregationist presidential candidacy, supported Pickering's appointment.

"I don't see nothing wrong with it no-how," said Lott at his comfortable Washington D.C. retreat, throwing a few more crosses on the fire. "I believe the nation is a better place now that Charlie's on the court."

Finding liberal outrage at a disgustingly reserved level, Bush accused Democrats and those who opposed Pickering's nomination of discrimination against the widely-accused bigot.

"This is the worst kind of discrimination—against white people," said the president. "The Democrats are guilty of what they done accused Judge Pickering of. They are biased. Against religious people, against Southerners, and against white bigots everywhere. For shame, Democrats. Hate-mongers."

Democrats were dismayed at the accusation, and responded late Friday: "No, seriously, you got to be shitting us."

The president replied later in the day that he was indeed not shitting them.

"Sure, Democrats believe the nation should be equally represented, when it's equally represented by people all in favor of equality," slurred Bush, possibly drunk on rye whiskey. "Just you try to be a white man who wants all blacks segregated and stripped of their voting rights. Then you find out who the real minority in this country is. And if you're a good ol' boy from a state with a history of state-supported racism who also has serious issues with women and rolling back pro-choice politics, throw into that you want to abolish the separation of church and state, then all of a sudden you find out who really wants equality. Not you—and definitely not the Democrats."

Representatives of the Democratic party could not be reached for further comment, but insiders say they were anxious to find out if Bush was really shitting them or not.

There's nothing more ugly than a fat man in banana-colored jams. That's just a fact of life. Sweet canary-colored Christ, is that a hard fact of life. This having been said, I admit there are more tactful ways to spread the word about this eternal truth than screaming it through a batch of megaphones you've got welded to the roof of your car like some kind of old-timey politician on a budget.

But may all the world's unfortunately-dressed fat men be my witness when I say I didn't set out this morning to malign the portly and ill-coutured via electronic amplification. I just wanted to test out the six-megaphone behemoth I had recently added to the roof of Bricksmobile III (formerly known as the Bagecudda) for purposes of thinking out-loud while in commute. Needless to say, that unfortunate fat bastard surprised me by appearing on the sidewalk in the middle of one of Omar Bricks' famous stream-of-consciousness clusterfuck rants, which led to me inadvertently screaming "Sweet Grandma Moses, did you see that fat fucker's pants?!?!" at the top of my lungs for the benefit of most of the greater metro area. If I'd had more time to think about what I was broadcasting at the decibel equivalent of two jet engines exploding in a stainless-steel men's room, I might have made it less obvious which fat fucker I was talking about, saving that jams-wearing butterball a fair measure of public embarrassment.

Of course, as should surprise nobody, Omar Bricks was man enough to admit his mistake, which I did by flipping a bitch across the median and heading back to apologize to the yellow-legged monstrosity whose dignity I had shitcanned with my ear-piercing insensitivity.

This time around we were heading in opposite directions, so I only had time to yell "Sorry, fatass!" before my window of opportunity was gone. Anything I'd said after that would have appeared to be directed at this gang of Latino guys hanging out on the corner, who didn't look like they had any kind of sense of humor about loud, public affronts to their manhood. Not to be prejudiced or anything, maybe they were a sensitive barbershop quartet or something, but those didn't look like barbershop tattoos to me.

In the split second that I saw that big yellow blimp's face on the way back, I couldn't quite interpret the look he was giving me, but it for sure wasn't the look that says "Don't worry about it dude, and thanks for having such an unbelievable assload of class." It seemed more like a mix of "Why me?" and "Fuck you," so clearly he'd misunderstood my message and thought I was just buttering him up as the set-up for a really devastating critique of his wide-load fashion sense.

Needless to say, Omar Bricks just couldn't let that injustice stand, so I threw the Bricksmobile in reverse and made my way back up the sidewalk to re-apologize. I'd barely megaphoned a heart-felt "I'm sorry for drawing attention to your big yellow ass, chunky" when the dude took off running like he'd never heard of social etiquette.

Most people aren't familiar with the proper technique for driving backwards up a city sidewalk; they think you should take it slow and steady to make sure you don't hit anything, careful to remember that turning left makes the car go right, etc. Actually, that's the most dangerous thing you can do, you're in real deep shit if you honestly think you're going to keep all that crap straight. It's much safer to put the hammer down and let the G-forces steer your car for you, the sidewalk and surrounding buildings will direct your car far better than your eyes ever could, trust me. But most people don't know this, so they overreact and dive out of the way when they see your car bearing down on them, accelerating into the low 60's with a mangled shopping cart bent across the trunk.

Jimmy Jams was apparently from the overreactor's school of backwards-sidewalk driving, because he hit the shoe-leather expressway like a big fat Lamborghini running on NASA fuel when he saw the Bricksmobile take out that kiosk of newspaper vending machines en route to apology. I knew I was going to have to think fast to set this whole thing right.

"Really, you're not that fat," I offered charitably over the megaphones. "Anybody would look bad in those pants."

But the rotund runaway kept on sprinting, even after I blurted out "My bad" on the car's horn in universally-understood motorist Morse code. Some people just can't be reached, especially after you wipe out into a fruit stand and your homemade bank of megaphones snaps off and flies through the window of a nearby deli.

I think he got the message though. And even if he didn't, I imagine the sprint for his life helped him drop a few pounds, so I figure I'm karmically in the clear on this one either way. Bricks out.

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