THE BEST OF BUSH

Greetings, Loyal Readership!

Was it really just eight years that G.W. Bush was our president? Seriously? Because it felt like several lifetimes. Which, we guess, proves there is a bright side to the Bush administration: If you’ve ever wanted to live for all eternity, it certainly seems like we did during the Bush years. God-damn, but was that a long time! Clearly, immortality is not all it’s cracked up to be.

In the spirit of living forever, and the spirit of laziness, your BNITL editirs have culled our favorite stories from the Bush Reign, and we’ll be releasing them all year in this, the FYPB (first year post-Bush). If you ever feel like life is moving too fast, just read one and relive the agony all over again.

Cheers!

--The Editirs

Fall 2008

As Career Wraps Up, Rice Claims, “Nobody Could Have Predicted This”

Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, who has at her fingertips the daily intelligence briefings from the most extensive intelligence network in the world, has made a political career out of watching world events unfold and later exclaiming, “No one could have predicted this.” Most famously, she uttered this after 9/11, despite intelligence reports detailing the strong possibility of such an attack, and despite the fact that an attempt was indeed made to fly a plane into a nuclear plant as long ago as the 1960’s. Among several other instances, she also uttered this when, in the aftermath of the 2006 Palestinian election, which the US pushed against the wishes of most of the world, Hamas first won, then went to war against Fatah, tearing the Palestinian nation apart.

So, this morning, at a briefing, reporters asked Rice if there was, indeed, anything that a government with the most extensive—and expensive—intelligence service in the world could be expected to know ahead of time. “We believe but are not certain that turmoil will continue in the Middle East at least for the next day or two,” she said. Then, one reporter asked the Secretary of State what seemed like a softball question about the rising of the sun. “No, I don’t think anybody could have predicted that the sun would indeed rise today and shine light all around us. For that matter, who can tell if night will come this evening? If this does indeed happen, I’m not about to say we saw it coming, no sir.” Following a stunned silence, reporters began to file out of the room. Rice called after them, “What do you … or yesterday’s rain! Who could’ve predicted that? OK, well, the weather forecasters, sure, but really, how would anyone know?”

CHRISTMAS 2007

Seasoned Greetings, Loyal Readership!

The holidays are all about tradition, and one that we’re particularly proud of is our annual president-free noozletter. You’ve no idea of the degree of suffering it takes to give this gift, as there is just so very much to say about the man who, even after seven years sitting atop the world’s largest atomic arsenal, still can’t pronounce the word, “nuclear.” This could explain why North Korea and Iran have seemed so troublesome when asked to give up their “new-cular” programs—they had no idea what he’s talking about. (“Hey, speak ploper Engrish!” a North Korean diplomat was reported to have said). Speaking of gifts, what is the true meaning of the holidays? Why, gifts, of course! The ones you got, the ones you didn’t, the ones you want to give back, and the ones you wish existed. Covering the first two categories, the world got one big fat gift this Christmas, though it meant that Dick Cheney apparently will not get the first item on his list, which was to invade yet another country. (“But, but, but, but, I NEEEEEEED a matching set! Wahhhh!” the vice president is reported to have whined to the president. “What good is Iraq without Iran! I don’t want stinky old Iraq! Take it back,” he pouted.) The vice reportedly threw a 27 minute tantrum in the Oval Office which was interrupted only by the need for doctors to shock his heart back into rhythm. Cheney recovered himself and later announced his holiday plans to, “shoot someone in the face and later maybe see if there are any frozen cadavers in the freezer I can chew on.” In the category of gifts we want to give back, soccer star David Beckham came to the US to play soccer, which was good news for Major League Soccer, but, unfortunately, he brought his wife, Victoria Beckham, a.k.a., Posh Spice. Every time her sneering visage appears perched atop breasts seemingly inflated with some kind of deadly James Bond space compound, her strikingly sharp bones threatening to slice through her incredibly classy neoprene dresses, we turn away in horror and stupefaction screaming, ‘Please, please, let me gaze upon a blazing bus full of orphans instead!” God bless her children. And, finally, in the category of gifts we wish existed, we’d love, just once, to see a dog walking around carrying a Paris Hilton doll. When asked about “Lil’ Paris” the dog would say, “I just like to do her hair up, dress her in little matching outfits, or get her together with my friends’ Barbies, have them do massive amounts of drugs together and sleep with lots of cute guys. Sometimes, she’ll get married for 24 hours, or go through jail, drug rehab and find Jesus.” … Oh, man, would that be cool.

Hoping you get everything YOU want this Christmas!

Cheers! --The Editirs

WINTER 2007

Quotable Nazis

Your BNITL doesn’t do things like other publications. We don’t, for instance, have funnies, a crossword, or Sudoku. However, we’re proud to announce a fun new game called, Quotable Nazis! It works like this: We list a quote, and you decide which of your favorite Nazis wrote it. Today’s list of Nazis includes: Hermann Goering, Dick Cheney, Joseph Goebbels and Karl Rove.

QUOTE: “The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders… All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

ANSWER: No, direct-mail wizard and master of spin Karl Rove is incorrect. This was uttered by Hermann Goering.

Q: We will f**k him. Do you hear me? We will f**k him. We will ruin him. Like no one has ever f**ked him."

A: Joseph Goebbels is incorrect. Karl Rove uttered this quote about a political ally who displeased him. With friends like these …

Q: If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

A: No, Dick Cheney, is not correct, even though he has consistently maintained that there are WMD’s in Iraq, that there were Saddam-9/11 links, and, despite a stunning lack of evidence, has also convinced much of the American public of this. And, no, Karl Rove, who managed to turn war hero John Kerry into a flip-flopping coward in the public’s eye, is incorrect. This statement is by Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels.

Q: “Go f**k yourself.”

A: While Joseph Goebbels undoubtedly said this many times, the f-bomb is a favorite among members of the Bush administration, which, as we will remember, came to the White House pledging to bring decency, meaning, apparently, that instead of f***ing interns, they would simply repress all that love and throw the word around a lot instead while invading countries and killing a lot of people. For the record, Dick Cheney uttered this on the Senate Floor to Patrick Leahy, who had the temerity to ask about Halliburton war profiteering. So, remember: If the f-bomb is dropped, as in, “Man, this administration has really f***ed America over good,” it’s usually a Bush administration person who has said it.

Q: "I've already said too much."

A: Hermann Goering is not correct. Again, while this quote is reminiscent of Sergeant Schultz of “Hogan’s Heroes” fame, and therefore would lead one to believe that a German must have said it, this was Karl Rove to a Time Magazine reporter as he was compromising American intelligence operations by ratting out Valerie Plame.

Thanks for playing!

Fall 2008- In which a gun-toting Alaskan twit competes with the Summer Olympics and Condoleeza Rice to inspire the most vitriol.

Greetings, Loyal Readership!

Among such remarkable things as a gun-toting Alaskan twit--who only obtained a passport in 2006, and counted a refueling stop in Ireland as one of the countries she’s visited--being nominated for vice president, we have the Beijing Olympics, where a mere six athletes were busted for the use of illegal substances. This is a poor haul, indeed (though dozens, apparently, flunked the test for activism and were jailed). The reason it’s so disappointing is that we’re deprived of the athletes’ incredibly entertaining denials. So, as with highlight reels, let’s relive some of the great denials of the past. For instance, remember biker Tyler Hamilton? Busted after the last Olympics, he claimed his elevated testosterone levels are due to a phantom twin in the womb. Perfect for the soaps, don’t you think? We could do away with the over-used Evil Twin character: “Joshua, it wasn’t Tyler who killed your beautiful new wife that night . It was … his phantom twin!” Baseball was an Olympic sport for the last time this year, but despite being unemployed, Roger Clemens didn’t participate. Perhaps it is due to the fact that they wouldn’t promise him several hundred thousand dollars per strike, as the Yankees did last season, or maybe it was that pesky steroid thing. If he needs a job, though, the bloated, square-headed Clemens could always score a gig as a float in the Macy’s Day parade alongside his similarly-unemployed brother in ‘roids, Barry Bonds, he of the oddly circular cranium that appears always about to burst, and not with knowledge. They finally a tearful Marion Jones to jail this year, which ranked a zero on the entertainment scale, but at least that episode brought to mind fun memories of her former husband, shot-putter CJ Hunter, who several years ago cried at his Olympic press conference as he said that he would NEVER knowingly take steroids. Yet, he had flunked four tests the previous year! That’s a whole lot of not knowing. Stop us, we might hurt a rib. And that’s really, the point, isn’t it? Righteous indignation is so boring. We don’t demand honesty from our athletes, integrity from our politicians, or a sense of self-preservation from humankind (the disposable Starbucks cup and the green bumper sticker don’t cancel each other out, knucklehead), but as the world inexorably spins down the drain, we absolutely insist that all three entertain us. Hence, Merlene Ottey, the ancient Jamaican sprinter. She insisted that there surely must be a mistake and she’d be happy to take the test again. Sure, after multiple caffeine enemas and a patented Keith Richards-style blood transfusion. Not to mention standing on a street corner holding an empty cup saying, “Say, buddy, can you spare some urine?” Ah, memories! Keep ‘em coming, folks. Please! With gun-toting, oil-loving, absentee-parenting, global-warming-denying yahoos being touted as first-class vice presidential candidates, we need the laughs. God, do we ever.

In the spirit of full disclosure, your editirs categorically deny ever using steroids to enhance performance. Are you kidding? This noozletter sucks!

Cheers—The Editirs



Big Hopes Quickly Fade For Olympic Champions
Medal Winners in Equestrian, Archery, Field Hockey Events Bewildered At Lack of Big Money Offers

For the 29th straight time, US Olympic athletes with high hopes for major endorsement deals have been disappointed. “I’d have thought that after sweeping the Women’s Individual Sabre, we’d at least be on the freakin’ Wheaties box, said gold winner Mariel Zagunis. “But when I got back to my home town, they didn’t even know I’d left.” The Women’s Eight With Coxswain team unanimously agreed, though they conceded that perhaps it was an ominous sign that no one saw their event but judges and a few Chinese prisoners. Vincent Hancock, who took gold in the Men’s Skeet, expressed similar disappointment. “All the training, all the hours, and I’m just going to have to go back to work in the gun shop. I’d think that at least I’d have my own cable show.” The Equestrian Mixed team, which took gold, “thought” they saw Kobe Bryant once in the Olympic Village, but they weren’t sure. In any case, “he didn’t seem interested in comparing medals,” they said. The US took a silver in the Mixed Finn, but Zach Railey said that, far harder than training for it is explaining what it is. His silver effort was aided by the fact that only three people in the world, apparently, participate in the event. “Yeah, but I was NOT going home with the bronze,” said Railey. “No %^$#-ing way.” Embarrassing for the athletes was an unsightly tussle Railey got into with Men’s Double Trap gold winner Walton Eller as they argued over who’s sport was the true “loser sport.” Jason Turner, bronze medal winner in the Men’s 10M Air Pistol event, tried to break it up by firing into the air, but was ignored. “It’s an air gun, but it shoots real bullets, you guys!” he screamed, to no avail.


RICE RECORD REMAINS PERFECT
Secretary of State Forming Entire Career on Fallback Phrase

In the wake of the Russian response to Georgia’s Big Dumb Idea of attacking South Ossetia, a region which has never belonged to Georgia, Condoleeza Rice claimed that the Russian invasion was entirely surprising and unprecedented, despite the fact that the administration had also been trying to make Georgia, which borders Russia, into a NATO ally. “There was simply no way anyone could have seen this coming,” she said, “especially during the Olympics when everyone’s attention was elsewhere.”

With that utterance, Secretary of State Rice, who has at her fingertips the daily intelligence briefings from the most extensive intelligence network in the world, improved her record to a perfect 0-87 in terms of apparently having the slightest idea what’s going on in the world.

Major political figures often leave behind famous quotes in their wake. Abraham Lincoln said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Ronald Reagan said, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” Rice will go down in history as the secretary of state who made a political career of out watching world events unfold and later exclaiming, “No one could have predicted this.”

Like a child who utters some phrase to the delight of adults and then chooses to say it again and again (generally to diminished enthusiasm), Rice first tried out her famous phrase after 9/11, when, despite the fact that intelligence reports detailed the strong possibility of such an attack, and despite the fact that an attempt was made to fly a plane into a nuclear plant as long ago as the 1960’s, Rice told the world, “No one could have predicted this.” Seeing how easily this got her off the hook, Rice has employed the phrase dozens of times since then, including in the aftermath of the disastrous 2006 Palestinian election, which the US pushed over the wishes of most of the world and which resulted in Hamas and Fatah tearing the region apart. Like the Bud Light, “Wassup?” the Fonz uttering, “Heyyyyy,” or Gary Coleman asking his TV brother, “What choo talkin’ bout, Willis?” Rice has used her, “No one could have predicted this” at different occasions both public and personal, including the arrival of presents at birthday parties, the arrival of food at dinner parties, and the arrival of invited guests to her own home.

So, this morning, at a briefing, reporters asked Rice if there was, indeed, anything that a government with the most expensive intelligence service in the world could be expected to know ahead of time. “We believe but are not certain that turmoil will continue in the Middle East at least for the next day or two,” she said. Then, one reporter asked the Secretary of State what seemed like a softball question about the rising of the sun. “No, I don’t think anybody could have predicted that the sun would indeed rise today and shine its light all around us. For that matter, who can tell if night will come this evening? If this does indeed happen, I’m not about to say we saw it coming, no sir.”

When asked what she planned to do when the Bush administration leaves office, Rice said, “What? The president only gets two terms? No one could have predicted this.”


McCain Reveals VP Strategy
Once Again, Media Gets it Wrong

Amid a swirl of commentary regarding the reasoning behind his pick of Sarah Palin as his running mate, John McCain announced today that the reason for choosing Palin was “way simpler than guns or abstinence or oil or disaffected Hillary fans … it’s because she’s 44, you dopes! He then went on to explain the concept of averages. “When I started this campaign, I was 25 years older than my opponent. Then, my opponent made a fatal mistake—he chose an old guy as his running mate, raising his average age to 56. I have deftly swept in for the kill by picking the youngest somewhat qualified person I could find, and now my average age is just 58! Take that, Barack!” McCain denied rumors that he considered asking Lindsay Lohan to be his running mate. Biden, who at 65 is at the official federal retirement age, bristled at being called, “On average, too young for the job.” He told reporters, “I’m old, damn it. I’m old!” McCain also explained that, on average, his team is now 50% less likely to get prostate cancer.