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Politics : Moderate Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Thomas M. who wrote (6681)	2/7/2004 1:17:49 PM
From: Ron	Respond to of 20773

When the Republicans get this kind of needling from the likes of Barron's, you know they are in more trouble than they'd like to admit... --- The Wrong Spin By ALAN ABELSON SOMETIMES YOU JUST CAN'T WIN. That's not a literal lament. We're not talking about the Carolina Panthers or Howard Dean. Rather, we're thinking of Halliburton. Fine old company, dedicated to going all-out in doing its part in the war effort as well as striving selflessly to help solve America's mounting energy problems. Yet for all its patriotic exertions, it's the target of an incessant barrage of vicious partisan abuse. And why? Only because of the Cheney connection (the vice president, of course, was once its beloved CEO). The most recent shocking instance is the great fuss surrounding its handling of the vital business of providing sustenance for our troops in Iraq and contiguous areas. Very much aware that there's another war going on -- against obesity -- Halliburton took considerable pains to make sure the men and women in uniform were not dangerously overfed, lest they grow too portly to perform their duties with agility and dispatch. But, wouldn't you know, instead of garnering accolades for such manifest solicitude for our fighting forces' well-being, it was wantonly accused of cheating Uncle Sam on meals. As if a company with over $16 billion in annual sales and more than $15 billion in assets would stoop so low for a measly $27 million. Well, the next time you see a fatso in uniform -- don't blame Halliburton! Or take Mr. Bush's budget. What a hullabaloo over the size of the shortfall -- half a trillion or thereabouts. OK, it's much more of a longfall than a shortfall, and it does omit certain minor expenses that in toto don't add up to more than a hundred billion or so, but, gees, he did promise to cut it in half in five years. The wiseacres are all scoffing that he won't be president five years from now, so what'll we do if he doesn't come through on that promise? We can tell those smarmy smart alecks what we'll do -- we won't elect his brother Jeb president, that's what. Or consider brave Donald Rumsfeld, who has been the target of so much flak for the failure to uncover those elusive weapons of mass destruction. In understandably testy testimony before Congress last week, the much-maligned defense secretary couldn't take it any more and, mad as hell, he blurted out he knew exactly where those WMD are hidden -- in holes in the ground. More specifically, in a vast web of spider holes (Iraqi spiders are real big) like the one Saddam Hussein cowered in. So why haven't the thousands of diligent searchers uncovered that deadly cache of sequestered weaponry or, for that matter, even one little weapon of mass destruction, say a baby nuke? What Mr. Rumsfeld wasn't at liberty to reveal is that the only certain way to unearth those WMD is to enlist the preternaturally sensitive snouts of France's famous truffle-hunting hogs. But a man of unyielding principle, Mr. Rumsfeld recoils at the very notion of assistance from frog hogs and, in any case, isn't talking to the perfidious French these days, so, alas, our guys are still looking in all the wrong places.. ---------