What if they really were criminal masterminds?

I was talking with a friend recently about conspiracy theories. He came up with a nutty one based on birthdays that tied George W, Burt Ward, and Sly Stallone.

This conversation would have been better with the benefit of some mind altering substance, but given our ages, our minds have been altered enough.

He wove Burgess Meridith in there as having worked with both Sly and Burt, but hadn't connected the dots to George...so I did it for him by telling him that Dick Cheney is often referred to as The Pengin on The Daily Show.

This led to my altered mind going into overdrive. I give you the results for your comment:

Penguin = Cheney
Joker = George Bush (this gives W too much credit, but he is insane and makes a lot of bad jokes.)
Harley Quinn = Laura Bush
Catwoman = Rice
Riddler = Rumsfeld
Bookworm = Wolfowitz
Two Face = Powell
R'as al Ghul = Rove
Black Mask = Gonzalez
Mister Freeze = Michael Chertoff
Scarecrow = John Ashcroft
Cain = Tom DeLay
Solomon Grundy = Ronald Reagan
Ventriloquist = Scooter Libby
Poison Ivy = Ann Coulter
Bane = Rush Limbaugh (Venom = Oxy Contin or Viagra, depending on what he needs relieved)
The Cluemaster = Robert Novak
Killer Croc = Sean Hannity (granted, croc in his case doesn't stand for crocodile but crock of something significantly less palatable.)
The Mad Hatter = Michael Savage

But really, does this work? John Kerry = Batman, John Edwards = Robin ?

Kerry is more like Alfred and Al Gore more like Batman. Lieberman is no Robin, however, but maybe Lieberman is more like that corrupt cop on the Gotham police force, Detective Bullock. Paul Wellstone as Commissioner Gordon. Nancy Pelosi is Batgirl.
Hillary, of course, is Wonderwoman.
Bill Clinton = Superman (Man of Teflon instead of Steel).
Howard Dean as Green Arrow.

I could go on, I suppose, but I'd only reveal the true extent of my desire to avoid living my own life.

A Letter from Uncle--Where is Ken Starr when you need him?

So much to write about recently--But, alas, I've been very busy with work and have not had the opportunity to rant about the injustice and corruption. Verily, my cup runneth over.

Instead, I offer you a guest editorial, as it were. An email I got today from my Uncle...who is a real inspiration for me.

Nephew,

Much to my surprise, I have to realize that Kenneth Starr's place in history needs to be re-examined. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that the fact he is not in our hearts and minds these days must be examined, which is to say we, the American public, must a look a bit at ourselves. In part this call for examination is simply due to a growing realization of importance of his investigations. Through his efforts we came to learn that semantics, such as "What is, is" word games, plays so large a place in our polite social and political fictions. We learned, as well, that some of us will gladly force all of us to expend endless time, trouble and money to attack gnats, while most of us, whether from cynicisim or optimism, are not
fazed by documents sought for years suddenly appearing on a White House breakfast table without explanation. Starr made us understand that given enough time, every fact in any one's life that is not desired to be bruited about, can be made public, except, of course, those facts most important, such as motivation and causes and whether the person so subjected to scrutiny is, ever so slighty, insane and therefore fit for public office.

However, in a short half-generation, we find ourselves bereft of all this. Can you imagine the exquisite public debates today, if Starr were to force the present incumbent president to explain "What I believe belief may be" in terms of weapons of mass destruction? Do any of us believe it would be less salutory today to discover whether there was a conspiracy afoot to have us attack a country without cause, in the name of anger against an admitted enemy on an entirely different matter? Would it not be more important than ever today to have someone of Starr's zeal and aptitude for detail pore over the public pronouncements and secret announcements of this administration, to find where things were omitted, violations of public trust committed and plain old- fashioned fibs uttered, than it ever was in the past to find out if then private citizens made bad investments worse?

To some degree, our present failure to call back Starr to higher and greater tasks is simply our desire to avoid unpleasantness. This may be stated in high-falutin' terms. "Starr," one might say, "was before dedicated to finding "high crimes and misdeamanors," in a kind of Paul Drake role to the House of Representatives as Perry Mason. However, that formula is upon a moment's reflection recognizably threadbare. If failing to tell the truth (if the contorted questions and answers in question could be so construed) under oath rose to the standard of a high crime and misdeamanor, surely attacking another country without provocation, upon trumped up charges, rises to that same standard. Indeed, I had thought that invading countries
without cause and upon trumped up charges, as when the Nazi regieme invaded Poland after dressing up corpses so as to make it look as though Poland had attacked a few German soldiers, was a crime against humanity, a crime under international law and all the rest. I may be wrong, but I would imagine that the homes of the some 2,500 American dead, the homes of all those wounded, the homes of all those worried that their loved one may die there, would, if polled at length, support some examination of how their loss or pending loss came to be.

There is, however, one way we must change before we are worthy of Kenneth Starr in these times and can call him forth again. Apparently we enjoy self-examination only when it is combined with sexual titillation. I have no quarrel with sex bieng one of the main driving forces of our lives. However, I suspect we had better give a little attention to the drive, previously thought to be even more important, of self-preservation. Absent our champion of Kenneth Starr again taking to the field, our sloth puts us all in danger.

Your loving Uncle

And there you have it. Now, get your bottle of vodka and crawl back into bed. The worst is yet to come.