[The story you are about to read is true, in that it is based on actual case files from a real dream I had after falling asleep with the TV on. Yes, I carry a remote. I'm a couch potato.
Scott C., now back from working on a major motion picture which has nothing to do with Fox News, assisted with the writing of this piece, in that he contributed all the funny parts.]
I haven't been feeling up to snuff this month (but then, I rarely feel like putting tobacco flakes in my nose) and haven't done anything in celebration of the Christmas season. No tree shedding needles (or secreting deadly plastic fumes) in my living room. No presents purchased (no, not a one). No fudge made to pass to the neighbors as a way to say, "Lets pretend we know each other's names..." No goosing of the poor. No crutches for Tiny Tim. The whole bit.
But last night I had a revelation. Not feeling up like doing anything constructive, I rested my weary frame on the couch and turned the TV to Fox News, which I thought might be good for a chuckle. And then I must have dozed off . . .
I was awakened by the sound of clanking. Yes, the cat had knocked the objects d'art off the mantle again. (Okay, I don't really have a mantle, and my objects aren't particularly d'art, but I do have a cat which can jump 6 feet in the air to reach the shelf where breakables are kept, and then procede to stagger around drunkenly until every item from the shelf has tumbled to the floor). Anyway, the cat said something about these Precious Moments figurines being the chains I forged in life, and that I would be visited by three bears or something. I plopped some Fancy Feast in its dish to shut it up, and stumbled back to the couch, the TV still droning on.
I woke up to find that a pudgy middle-aged man with a blotchy face was yelling at me.
"Saddam should be deprived of sleep, loaded up with truth serum, kept isolated and underfed, confronted with noise... whatever it takes!" the spectre shouted. "The CIA should take all the time it needs to find out everything this psychopath knows. And they should use all methods short of instrumental torture to get answers."
I said, "Spectre, have you come to show me shades of those things which have been, or are you just talking out of your ass, because the White House said that Saddam was being "being treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention and provided protections of a prisoner of war," and, as we all know, the Geneva Convention states that "Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated," with Article 17 specifying that:
No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.
Article 26 adds.
The basic daily food rations shall be sufficient in quantity, quality and variety to keep prisoners of war in good health and to prevent loss of weight or the development of nutritional deficiencies. Account shall also be taken of the habitual diet of the prisoners.
All through my recitation of the articles of the Geneva Convention, the ghost frantically tried to cut my microphone, but since I didn't have one, he was reduced to shoving his fingers in his ears and singing, "La la la, I can't hear you!"
When he finally stopped that, I asked him who the hell he was, and what he was doing in my living room. He indicated that he was the Ghost Of Christmas Past, and he was there to look out for me by showing me scenes from days gone by, which would demonstrate how my life had gotten off track and teach me many valuable lessons. And at no cost to me, since this exhaustive investigation into my past was being funded by a grant from the Richard Mellon Scaife Foundation.
And then he grabbed my hand and we floated through time and space, back, back to a couple of days ago, to when The Sunday Telegraph reported that a document discovered in Iraq details a meeting between Abu Nidal and the leader of the 9/11 attack, Mohammed Atta.
The ghost got all quivery with indignation, and asked me if I knew what this meant? But before I could answer, he poked his finger in my face and said that it meant (if it was legitimate--which he was assuming that it was) that:
First, Howard Dean's credibility will be shattered, and he will cease to be a viable candidate for the Democrats. Second, France, Germany, Russia, and the United Nations will be humiliated. And third, the far-left anti-war people will be marginalized for years to come in this country.
I said, wow, my phantom home breaker really WAS from the past, since yesterday Newsweek had reported that:
U.S. officials and a leading Iraqi document expert tell NEWSWEEK that the document is most likely a forgery—part of a thriving new trade in dubious Iraqi documents that has cropped up in the wake of the collapse of Saddam's regime.
I informed the Ghost of Christmas Past that, per Newsweek, "senior U.S. law-enforcement officials" said that it was highly unlikely that Atta could have been in Iraq in the months before 9/11 because there was so much documention showing he was in the United States for that period. Also,
Mneimneh, the Iraqi document expert, says that there are other reasons to discount the handwritten memo touted by the Telegraph. The document includes another sensational second item: how Iraqi intelligence, helped by a "small team from the Al Qaeda organization," arranged for a shipment from Niger to reach Iraq by way of Libya and Syria. Although the shipment is unspecified, the reference to Niger was immediately suggestive of Bush administration assertions earlier this year that Iraq sought to import yellowcake uranium from that African nation—claims that also have been widely discredited as being based on other forged documents that apparently came from the Niger Embassy in Rome.
Mneimneh says the wording of the document makes him highly suspicious: Iraqi intelligence officials were notoriously conservative and rarely—if ever—put incriminating information in writing. The reference to the Iraqi intelligence working with a "small team from the Al Qaeda organization" is "too explicit," he says.
Ironically, even the Iraqi National Congress of Ahmed Chalabi, which has been vocal in claiming ties between Al Qaeda and Saddam's regime, was dismissive of the new Telegraph story. "The memo is clearly nonsense," an INC spokesman told NEWSWEEK.
The ghost, who had feverishly tried to interrupt me while I quoted Newsweek (but lacking corporality, his efforts to put his hand over my mouth, were ineffective, although still really icky), was clearly distraught by the time I finished. He finally shouted, "Irresponsible newspapers harm this country! They pose a threat to democracy, a threat to democracy I say! And I'll be back in a few hours to tell you why."
I remarked that I thought that it was supposed to be a different ghost's turn. He just glared at me, and then vanished. I shook off my dread. Clearly, Fox News didn't exist; it was just an underdone potato, a blob of mustard, a bit of undigested beef or something. I went back to sleep...
2:41:03 PM
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