Patty Cake

Published 12/20/2002 5:00:00 PM

All's well that end's well. A spent Trent Lott, the Republican Party's Monica Lewinsky, according to Jesse Jackson Sharpton, Jr. (if we heard right), has stepped down, but he's not going to go into the ladies' purse business. He has burned his Dixiecrat Party card, and removed from his linen closet anything in white and even off-white. But just so the coverup can continue in another guise, he'll stay on in the Senate, serving the military-industrial complex of Pascagoula, and depriving the Hon. Lincoln Chafee of his rendezvous with destiny. President Bush interrupted his war on the world to rehabilitate Trent, pronouncing him "a valued friend and a man I respect." For once it's Lott's turn to say, "Thanks a lott."

All that's left now is to declare Sen. Bill Frist majority leader by acclamation and to learn what people make of his surname. Some will think he represents NFL referees, as in "frist and ten." Others are convinced he's a creature of John Ashcroft and his determination to increase federal "search and frist" powers. As for Washington, D.C., it shall remain frist in war, frist in peace, and last in the American League.

Billy Clinton, the little great one, or great little one, whichever you prefer, continued his newest comeback by pronouncing the Republican Party fundamentally racist. There he went again, projecting like someone still deeply troubled for going ahead with the execution of a lobotomized black prisoner on the eve of a critical Democratic presidential primary in early 1992. In happier news, Clinton is back to competing with Jimmy Carter overseas, writing for the International Herald-Tribune that America must not "dominate" but rather focus on supporting such institutions of "global community" as the United Nations. Well, at least the Clinton-Carter competition isn't over a woman.

In a different rivalry, neo-cons and con-cons are squawking and pecking and plucking at each other's feathers over who on the right brought about the ouster of former Democrat Trent Lott and which of these wings is the true conscience of conservative commitment to racial sensitivity, not to mention equality and color-blindness. On this one let's just say we report, but can't decide, and so will hide behind the skirts of the Constitution, properly understood.

In more normal times we'd do our hiding behind the skirts of a maternal figure like Sen. Patty Murray, famous for winning her Senate seat as a "mom in tennis shoes." What we didn't know is that instead of letting the family dog chew on those shoes she decided to do so herself, and now their rubber and plastic residue has entered her brainstream, leading to hallucinatory pronouncements about all that the popular Osama bin Laden has done to build roads, health-care facilities and day-care centers around the world. Could she be confusing Osama with Jimmy Carter and his many good works? Or is Jimmy not violent enough for the little mom? Not since Squeaky Fromme and Patty Hearst have we heard such an eruption from a seething cauldron of suburban angst. For once we understand why Sen. Thurmond found her attractive. He has this thing about women with the odor of death about them.

So will Sen. Murray be forced to resign from the Senate? Or will it be said that like most politicians she was only telling her audience what it wanted to hear? After all, her remarks were delivered in Vancouver, which sounds like Canada (though this version is actually on the U.S. side of the border). Besides, she immunized herself by emphasizing that "we have not done" any of the good things Osama has. Heck, we can't even provide day care facilities for our own people. While lamenting the idea of bombing Iraq, she stopped short of calling for the bombing of the U.S. Nonetheless, so long as she remains a senator from Washington state, can Seattle's Space Needle be thought to stand secure?

This late-breaking development about Sen. Murray, first reported nationally by Drudge (unless it was OpinionJournal.com that beat him to it) and at this writing not yet available to consumers of the Washington Post and New York Times websites, spoiled our many plans for a special tribute to perennial punk Sean Penn. Suffice it to say he liked Baghdad, because there at least no one hassled him when he chain-smoked. New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg promptly retaliated by outlawing smoking in Manhattan bars, just the sort of half-measure that's bound to hurt his raging popularity. Will it take another Elliot Ness before drinking is also outlawed in New York City bars?

Now Bloomberg needs an enforcer. If her surprise selection as Enemy of the Week doesn't spoil her, we'll be happy to recommend Patty Murray. For as we've seen, she's got connections.

ATTENTION ENEMY SHOPPERS: Nominations for Enemy of the Year are now being accepted. Send your choices to the heavy-breathers at Enemy Central c/o editor@theamericanprowler.org. Act now, before they get away with it. Winner to be announced on December 27.

-- Anonymous, December 20, 2002