Checking the Answering Machine

The mainstream press, relying upon age-old journalistic ethics which dictates that a reporter must, under any circumstances, eat his own when a rating point or two is on the line, has now jumped aboard the Memogate bandwagon, which is now replete with baton twirlers, Shriners on motorbikes, a gigantic Bullwinkle balloon, and various Democratic strategists who, rising up in righteous anger, are directing our attention to the obvious culprit: Karl Rove.

My reaction to this very serious matter may be summarized as follows:

1.) BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
2.) HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

There has been a great deal of smirking, pinkies to the mouth, and fingertip tapping--"Eeeeexellent"--and then I turned on the radio, where someone was broadcasting answering machine messages left by passengers on the planes from That Day. "I love you," a woman sobbed, "I called to tell you that I love you, they're saying there's a bomb--"

It has been three years now. We have not been struck again, and have slipped back into the luxury of stomping upon such details as kernings and font points. These superscripts, they are tiny little marks evidence of a fraud perpetuated by people with tiny little souls. (Probably also tiny little other things, but we won't go there just now.)

I am now weary of it all; this endless argument over Purple Hearts and swift boats and draft deferments. I just want quiet, and to wander an airport once more without my ID in one hand and a small ball of dread in the other.