France Harboring Hussein, Bin Laden, Hamburgler

atching fire crazily like a letter from your ex-husband, the Bush Administration's groundbreaking "Trust us, we know" stance on providing proof for controversial allegations has scored fans in all walks of American life, from adulterers and witch-accusers to the nation's largest newspapers. The latest newspaper allegations streamlined by this new information-disseminating breakthrough involve the rogue nation of France and the obvious role it has played in harboring Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, and, according to one source who in true Bush style refused to prove his own identity, the infamous beef larcenist The Hamburgler.

These latest accusations, which wouldn't have been printed if they weren't true (these folks have better things to do than make up stories, people), come on the heels of numerous proof-challenged jabs at France's evil underbelly in recent months. Articles appearing in diverse and fancily named American news institutions such as The Washington Times, The Washington Post, and The Post-Washington News Times have brought a host of startling allegations against France and it's 2.7 million unpatriotic non-American citizens. Long perceived to have a soft spot for Iraq, thanks to heavy French investment in the country and lucrative oil contracts, the island nation has only recently been accused of high-level deception, ranging to everything short of putting banana peels under the heels of American soldiers marching on Baghdad. Which we're going to go ahead and accuse them of right now, the weasels.

The impressive New York Times reported damningly in September that in 1998, France and Germany had supplied Iraq with the damned switches needed to detonate democracy-hating nuclear weapons. A French denial issued in a phony accent insisted that Iraq had ordered the parts allegedly for use in medical equipment, but that suspicious French officials had barred the sale and notified the Germans immediately. To which the Times replied wittily, "Oh sure, go crying to the Germans. That sounds just like France."

Sales of chemical components for long-range missiles, armored vehicles, war cheese and radar equipment between France and Iraq were reported, and slimily denied French-style, in April.

The duplicitous French proved even more slippery in November, when the Washington Post quoted a "U.S. intelligence source" as saying the French were hoarding the smallpox virus and selling airplane and helicopter parts to the Iraqis. Thanks to some tricky verbal maneuvering and a technicality, the French slithered off the hook when they demanded proof and the Post admitted that their source was, in fact, an intelligent reader of US Weekly, the nation's foremost authority on dish and celebrity gossip.

The French goose seemed surely cooked in May however, when The Washington Times reported that France had provided passports to fleeing Iraqi leaders, facilitating their escape to Europe. The French protested this story, perhaps too much if you catch our drift, and it was quickly denied by a White House too busy trying to slap Iraqi fingerprints onto some MacGyvered-together chemical weapons to mess with nailing the French to their well-deserved cross. The Times eventually bent to the French pressure and ran a small correction notice on page 4 of the next day's edition, explaining that a small typo had occurred and the original story should have ran with a "not" after every "did" that referred to France.

These latest allegations may prove harder to dodge, however, since the court of public opinion grows weary of these tedious demands for "proof," and France's strategy of deception may eventually backfire comically in their faces. Before long the public will demand that France prove it isn't hiding bin Laden, Hussein and the Hamburgler in the back room of some brothel somewhere, and this could prove difficult given the consensus that the Hamburgler is just some kind of cartoon character used to sell ground beef to infants. Word on the street, however, has it that France is busy cloning the three into one giant-sized tyrant who will oppress all of the world's people and make off with their meat, just like they did in WWII.

ources inside the Pentagon are now saying that señor capitan Bush easily confuses Iraq and Iran, and though he vehemently hates both countries, meant to go to war with one while appeasing the other with placating words. The trouble is, Bush may have gone to war with the wrong one.

Confirming the reports is recent retired general "Meat" Callaghan, who left his position as a war advisor shortly before the invasion of Iraq began.

"It was the intention early on that Bush meant to go to war with Iran, and all documents were signed to that effect," said Callaghan Friday, at a local café where this reporter had to buy his soup. "Though the country formed even less a discernible threat than Iraq, the president claimed they had weapons of ass destruction and needed to bombardmentalized. We frankly thought there was some sort of intelligence problem—the president wasn't getting the right intelligence to his brain. But he insisted there was no mistake, and thought the newspaper headlines reading 'Iranis Ran From Iran' would be funny enough to make him crap his pants."

No one is naming names, but sources suggest that those in the chain of command below Bush rewrote orders under his name to make Iraq the intended target. A quote attributed to Dick Cheney, addressing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, sums up the alleged view of other Bush administration officials:

"I'm tired of him going to war with every country just because he thinks the name is funny. I tried to explain the complicated politics of the Taliban and the possibility they were aiding Al-Qaeda and all he could come up with was 'Afghanstand sounds like a place where they sell blankets.' Or when the Syrian ambassador came to negotiate the Iraqi invasion with us and he kept saying, 'You Syrious?'"

Sources allege that Cheney and company did not fabricate presidential orders, merely "fixed" them. Retired Gen. Callaghan described the situation: "The president is good-natured and sincere enough in wanting to go to war, he just sometimes gets confused by all the dozens of names and funny-sounding words he gets all day. He just knows good countries and bad countries, coalitions and axis of evils—remembering real big issues and gray areas and such is hard. He knows one of those countries has the real bad leader who tried to kill his dad, and that's the one he meant to go to war with. A good administration knows how to do what the president means rather than what he says."

Answering the allegations in a press conference, outgoing White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer, clearly showing signs of weariness toward the end of his run, told something resembling the truth.

"The White House cannot confirm such reports without closer study, but yeah, it's probably true. You know the man won't go down as the sharpest president in history, I don't think I'm rattling any expectations to say that much. All these reports about the Bush administration manipulating intelligence in the Iraqi war have it backwards—the administration understandably had to manipulate the Bush intelligence. You don't want to see this guy try to do long division, you can actually see the brain cells committing hari kari."

Most reporters, including this one, was so dumbstruck by the forthright revelations we couldn't think of any follow-up questions.

I'm doing the audition circuit out in Hollywood big time these days, so it wouldn't surprise me to come home and find the apartment a little dusty. Mom always found cleaning to be in defiance of her religion, and dad thinks dusting demeans his manliness. I would say it's the high-pitched girl voice and purple vinyl jacket, but I don't want to get his ire up. Anyway, the dust is no surprise. And in fact, I'm not really surprised to find a gang war between my dad and lesbians either.

I knew some fallout was coming from my sister's revelation she's a homosexual, and dad's gang was getting dangerously full of itself, so it makes sense the two would eventually crash into each other. At least that's what I'm telling myself.

Cassandra and her girlfriend Steve tried to make a new family connection, part of some therapy or something, Cassandra's attempt to heal all the emotional scars in her life that led her into Harvard law and becoming a lawyer, instead of the path I took of pre-teen superstardom and my brother Poot's path of cult worship. She was doing well, too, she at least got to the point where mom was cool with it. Of course, mom said she always liked lesbians, she just didn't know why they all followed each other off a cliff to their deaths. Once again, mom not exactly Harvard material, as Cassandra always says.

If only dad could be so understanding. I suppose I could cut him a little slack by saying he was still struggling to keep control of his gang, the Baiters. Uncle Luke suggested the name because they attract so much jailbait, supposedly. I totally agree with them, as I was telling dad. I think they're the masters of attracting younger girls. Hopefully they'll take my suggestion and start calling themselves the Master Baiters.

But my own enjoyment aside, nothing challenges dad's masculinity more than fully-clothed lesbians. He and Cassandra never got along while we were growing up, he never did stop calling her "the other one." And Cassandra's partner Steve keeps telling her to stand up for herself, which makes for more tension than you could shake a tense stick at. Dad was just trying to taunt them after a while, his way of looking cool in front of the gang. I know he had to have some clue "the rugmunchers" wasn't a politically-correct way to refer to them. Cassandra told me so over Christmas and he must have heard. Anyway, it wasn't long before things blew up and Steve's friends in the National Wymans Collective began to protest.

Should be no surprise dad saw the group of leathernecks out front and took them as a threat to his turf. It was good for dad, in a way, since he rallied the gang together behind him. Uncle Luke put aside his differences and the fight for control of the gang was over, at least temporarily. They challenged the Wymans Collective to a rumble, and who knew, Steve can't turn down a challenge.

Actually, the rumble hasn't happened just yet, it's set for later Friday night this week, after Steve's lecture at NYU about the phallogenic oppression of the menstrual cycle, and dad sews the names on the back of the jackets. But this is a by-the-numbers thing for dad, so I predict the fight was short, the Wymans Collective fought the good fight and overcame, and probably three of the four members of dad's Master Baiters survived. Dad's crafty enough and knows when to abandon a good fight, so I assume he climbed on Freddy Mercury's back and got the hell out of there when the odds turned against him. If Uncle Luke bought the farm, maybe that will put the gang disputes to an end, and maybe even dad learned a little bit of respect for Cassandra and her new pals. In the meantime, I got to find a place in California and erase all excuse for coming back to this apartment.

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