The Oh, Really? Factor

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TV
Bill O'Reilly has a good idea. The conservative talk show host whose innovative on-air ideas have included flooding the United Nations Building, "and I wouldn't have rescued them," now says that, since San Francisco has voted not to allow military recruiters to buy a place in local schools, the city should be bombed off the map.

"Fine. You want to be your own country?" asks O'Reilly. "Go right ahead. And if al Qaeda comes in... and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it... You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead."

I think this is a fine notion. I've long been for starting my own country anyway, although mine was going to be called The Sandwich Country. Since I already live here, this will save me the trouble.

After all, what strikes you as a better target for terrorists, Coit Tower or Times Square?

Of course, O'Reilly's supporters are, one imagines, the type of citizens whose idea of a local landmark is the Ten Commandments obelisk on the courthouse lawn, or perhaps the '79 Camaro on cinder blocks down the road a piece.

But I'm all for it. Let's get all the hippies, the grungies, the radicals, the peaceniks, the beatniks, the artists, and the anarchists on one side of the wall. We'll put O'Reilly safely on the other side, along with Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, Dick Cheney, Rupert Murdoch, and notables from the Wall Street Journal, Halliburton (oops, I've already said Dick Cheney), and Exxon.

Then we tell both the patchouli smokers and the gun toters to drive as many SUV's and wave as many American flags as they please.

We'll see who gets hit first.

POL
The Cheney-Haliburton point still rankles, and I want to address it. Tell me if this strikes you as a conflict of interest.

Halliburton, sufficiently described as "a very large corporation," is one of the companies who has profitted the most from 9/11 and the mess in Iraq, which ARE related... now. I'm compelled to mention that when a company of this magnitude pulls in the kind of contracts they do, safety and workmanship have been known to give way to a ruthless bottom-line mentality.

If this is already too much for you, please reach for your remote and turn back to O'Reilly at this time.

Now, because there are only so many companies of this size, they can often cut corners and get away with it. If a dollar bill falls under my car seat, I reach for it... but when Halliburton's shoddy work results in the US owing Iraq over $200 million to redo it, the causes and effects are lost in red tape.

Oh, and remember when Halliburton charged us almost the same figure for feeding American troops and civilians? Yeah, they didn't do that; they simply pocketed it until an investigation uncovered the theft.

Some of these are no-bid contracts. Clearly the government either has no alternative to Halliburton at all -- and San Francisco alone is home to one, a massive conglomerate called Bechtel -- or Halliburton curries some major favor in a certain white house.

Perhaps this will clarify: every year Richard Cheney, who is our Vice President, draws a bigger salary from Halliburton than he does from the United States.

Sound like a conflict of interest at all? Well, Halliburton's people are very clear on this. You see, they've taken out a policy that insures Cheney will continue to get money even if they fail to draw a profit, or go under altogether. The logic is, that means he has no stake in keeping them afloat.

Therefore he is completely unbiased. Like the Supreme Court judge, who shall remain nameless, sharing a duck blind with other people who -- because I can't remember who it was -- shall also remain nameless, even though one was hearing a criminal case against the other. Antonin Scalia, the judge who shall remain nameless, insisted this was not improper because... well, there's no way it's not improper, so the reason doesn't matter; you just have to say something, anything.

These are the patriots. These are the people you should be inviting to your yoga class.

These are the people that will have major airports named after them.

I'm looking at you, National.

Will José Guillen and Livan "Fat Ass" Hernandez soon play for the Washington Cheneys?

Ooommmmmmmm.......

MR

QWTOFDY
"Every man is his own doctor of divinity, in the last resort."
-Robert Louis Stevenson