Giuliani Drops Out - "Time Isn't Right For My Brand Of Hardcore Nut-Jobbery..."

by Duke Amboy

God knows that - after the drubbing I took in our nation's capital - I would've gladly slunk off to a hole somewhere and tended my wounds (with or without the help of the "Itzi" girls). And I was Florida-bound.

But was it to hide away in my 1700 square-foot Art Deco condo on South Beach? (I'm not celebrityphobic enough to hide it from you - Sly Stallone lives five units down from me. (Of course, these days he's out on a campaign tour of his very own - hawking (and, boy howdy, isn't that the right term?) his monosyllabic hero's latest Fourth World shoot 'em up))

Of course it wasn't.

I was off to sunny Tallahassee. It was a three-way race: Romney, McCain, Giuliani.

(Huckabee - well, Mike was there. That's about all you could say for him.)

Who knew which candidate had auctioned his conscience and soul off to Satan for the highest bid? Only time (and the hop-headed anti-Castro soul of Florida's far-right) would tell.

The reality was (this is one of Rudy's favoritest expressions - hoping vainly to dupe the electorate into supposing that Rudy has a passing familiarity with such a creature)...

McCain took it all. Romney limped off, vowing (like the outbreak of a certain communicable disease - and no, it isn't chlamydia...) to turn up again - who knew where? who knew when?

And Rudy? Rudy went home. To whatever colored sky announces the dawn of a new day in Rudyland...

Doubtless he will bide his time. Plans are in place - even as we speak - to harness the forces of intolerance and xenophobia for another berzerk run at that big old brass ring in '12.

END OF DISPATCH

Not To Mention "Dubious"

by Duke Amboy

After the sheer lunacy of South Carolina, I was ready for some down time. I longed to head south to balmy Florida, hole up in my condo on South Beach for a day or two prior to the primary, slather myself in cocoa butter, and work on my tan while being fanned and fed grapes by my two secretaries - the "Itzi" girls: Fritzi and Mitzi, identical twins, Swiss National Gymnastics Olympic Team finalists, blonde, leggy, newly turned 18.

But whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make political correspondents...

There was the little matter called the State of the Union Address.

My editor at Blogsboro wasn't returning my calls (collect, natch...) because, so he says, he'd just got in some hot water over a public reading of my first Special Report. Well, all I can say is: Fuck 'em, if they can't take a joke...

Not that I'm kidding around here. Hardly. What I was doing: trying to figure a way to infiltrate the White House Press Corp and get within close enough proximity to the Capitol building to COVER THE STORY.

It's who I am, and all I've ever cared about...

But, alas, I didn't even make it through the first credential checkpoint.

True, I'd rolled into town at three a.m. the night before on a Greyhound, in the same set of clothes I've been wearing since Concord, clutching my duffel to my chest like the lifeline it so clearly is at this point, and - by the time it was my turn through the metal detector - I think my blood sugar must've dropped radically. I was a little twitchy, sharp spasms wracked my musculature, and I began to gibber a bit.

For some reason still inexplicable to myself, I asked the slab of beef holding the wand who had won the Super Bowl. He scowled at me - doubtless trying to decide specifically which drug (or combination thereof) I was on. At that point, I couldn't've told him. So, just for shits and giggles, he answered: "Miami."

"Miami?!?" I screeched. "Those fucking swine! My money was on DETROIT! Marino - that goddamn prima donna!"

"Sorry 'bout that, fella," he said, nonchalant, as he took me by the elbow and led me along hallways and down entry-card-operated elevators into a windowless room somewhere deep within the bowels of the Capitol complex...

There was a wooden table in there, a metal folding chair, a bucket in the corner, and a travel poster advertising sunny Havana (one's actual destination being, in point of fact, a bit more Easterly than that...).

"What's the bucket for?" I asked, keeping my voice as flat and neutral as possible.

"You'll find out, buckaroo," answered another side of Grade A sirloin, who was standing at one end of the table, drumming in 3/4 time on the glazed grain of its surface. "Be plenty o' time to answer all yer questions..."

I am hardly able to relate what happened next. Cavities were probed. Tests - polygraphic and otherwise - were administered. We had a long talk about a variety of high crimes and misdemeanors going back as far as the Johnson Administration. The upshot of it all - in the end they released me on my own recognizance and prohibited me from ever stepping foot within 1000 yards of the current (and any future) POTUS...

So I had to watch the SOTU speech in a bar - Oral Majority's - in the Adams Morgan neighborhood, with about fifty other so-called fringe journalists, who were convinced that 1) the election was already predetermined by the Freemasonic New World Order that controls our fates or 2) that the election will come down to a lesser of two or three evils sort of affair.

I was deep into my second bottle of Bushmill's before Shrub even took the podium, strutting through the House, high-fiving Reps and flashing the Dems an "I-told-you-fuckers-so" shiteater...

All I could make of his speech - through a filter of weariness and bone-deep despair - was that its first half seemed to consist of a colossal "You're on your own, fuckos!" to the average American. Sure, he wanted to "empower" somebody or other, and he babbled a lot of horseshit about "responsibility," but he still insisted on referring to Congress (and on their own turf too - the shameless fuck) as though they were a bunch of intractable infants who had just shat their collective pants...

Arrogance and dishonesty and self-aggrandizement (one can only hope) will never again hold so ruthless a sway at such a high level of political power.

But, casting a cursory glance back at the record of human history, I don't feel too convinced.

The best we can say is - we are merely 51 weeks away from the absolute end (unless he concocts another home field terrorist strike by one of his raghead minions and abolishes the electoral process entirely in the meantime...) of our collective gang-rape at the hands of the Current Administration. 

END OF DISPATCH 

Yellow Dog announced today that she has teamed-up with Durham, North Carolina based, Self Help Ventures, a 501 C nonprofit corporation dedicated to helping the poor gain homes and businesses.

A Facebook Cause page has been set up to allow contributers to easily contribute any amount on-line and all donations can be deducted from State and Federal income taxes. When asked why she chose Self Help Ventures over other programs Yellow Dog barked, "I've known the Eakes family for many years and all of them were always willing to scratch my ears whenever I needed. It only seems right that the first bitch in the White house should be willing to lick the hands of those who feed her."

Officers from Self Help Venturers were unavailable for comment when this story was filed.

Previously Yellow Dog posed in the nude with supermodel Heather Clem in an effort to raise funds for the Little Pet Project.

Yellow Dog arrived in Columbia, South Carolina today amid the turmoil caused by Barak Obama's Shermanistic sweep of the Palmetto State to look upon a vast voter wasteland with a path 40 miles wide burned right through the middle.

Reporters were curious as to why Yellow Dog would show up the day after the battle to which Yellow Dog howled, "Every warrior knows that every dog has his day. Yesterday was Obama's day but now that he has won he's long gone. Today is my day and I'm here to pick up the pieces, dig through the rubble and sniff out survivors.

"And you can bet,"Yellow Dog continued, "that unlike Obama and the other candidates I will not abandon South Carolina voters to be ravaged by the Republican hordes."

Dems Bicker While Tension Gets Thicker

by Duke Amboy

My encounter with John McCain had left my head heavy with thoughts of youth in Asia. I needed some warm and cuddly, so I decided to head on over to the Clinton campaign HQ: a converted warehouse deep in the heart of the meatpacking district. The aptitude of its location was dizzying...

I made it through security easily enough: they forswore the obligatory cavity search, settling on the more expeditious strategy of having me accompanied at all times by four former NFL linebackers in identical black suits, with cords dangling from their ears and sporting reflective shades, making them indistinguishably insectile...

One of them (he said his name was Biff - his buddies called him "Beefsteak") turned out to be a fan of my writing. He asked me to sign a copy of my first book, Fear and Loathing in Minneapolis. I wrote: "To Biff, the literary linebacker: Keep the faith, brother." I hoped, if push came to shove, he might go a little easier on me, maybe not break quite as many bones, for it's harder to pummel into submission a person you feel a certain bonhomie with.

They led me into a cavernous room, garishly lit by rows of fluorescent lights. There were channels cut into the floor and drains every ten feet or so, and overhead you could still see the spots where the hooks hung. This had been the slaughterhouse.

At the far end, there was a mock-up of a press briefing: the table with its array of network mikes, people milling around with cameras on their shoulders, rows of folding chairs with correspondents planted in them. Behind the table sat the Senator. She was deep into a groove: a down-homey piece of folk wisdom she'd purloined from one of her husband's campaigns.

There was a thin, dapper man standing behind her, a beret on his head, sporting a Van Dyke and pince-nez, who suddenly started clapping his hands jubilantly and chirping, "This is fantastic, Hill! You've got it, baby! Work it! Work it like a mother!"

The Senator went on. Her every gesture and facial expression was polished, rehearsed for the thousandth time, as though someone had taken a pumice stone to her whole routine. She reached the crescendo of her anecdote. You could tell she was girding herself. She'd just rounded third, home base was in sight. Did she have the gumption to steal it?

"Now!" the dapper man shrieked into her ear. "Now! Cry, you little bitch! Cry your fucking heart out!"

And, sure enough, the Senator managed to pinch her face up, as though she'd just smelled a particularly rancid fart, squint her eyes, and squeeze out a tear or two.

The collected journos gave her a standing O. Groups of them started chanting "Hill! Hill!" and whooping like Injuns on the attack. And though the entire event was staged, you could tell their enthusiasm was genuine. The Senator had them cowed. She owned them. It reminded me of grainy footage from an old movie: Nuremberg nights and stirring speeches. That one hadn't ended well either...

I worked my way through the throng of self-congratulatory actors. They were high-fiving and posing for photos with each other. Behind the table, the dapper man was gving the Senator a neck massage and cooing into her ear.

She recognized me. "Ah, Duke, my boy," she said breathlessly. It sounded like she'd been studying old Sharon Stone movies. "Glad you could make it. Alow me to introduce my image consultant..."

But, before she could, the man leaped across the table and was standing mere inches in front of my nose. "No, allow me," he intoned in a stage basso. "I am Roderick Catalan. The renowned thespian and Shakespeare advocate. I teach at the Actor's Studio. The New School. We have met, perhaps?"

As it turned out, we had. I had been invited to give a lecture at the New School, after the publication of my third book, Hale Bopping: The Heaven's Gate Cult (Brought To You By Nike). The lecture had sold out and, whereas the Administration had expected only to fill a large classroom, had to be held in the Tishman Auditorium, where they used to shoot Inside the Actor's Studio.

Lipton had been there, with his towering stack of blue cards, ready to pummel me with Bernard Pivot's Apostrophe questionnaire (I'd already prepared for the clincher: "If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?" - which I would've answered definitively: "Piss off, fucktard."), and lurking somewhere behind him was a man in a beret. I took him at first for a flunkey, perhaps a catamite admirer, but when Lipton introduced us, Catalan regaled me for nearly half an hour with an anecdote about staging Othello in a public high school in Watts. Refusing to give up the choicest lines, he'd taken the lead himself, and nearly provoked a race riot when he insisted on applying blackface to "properly portray the Moor," as he put it...

And so his was the insidious brain behind the Senator's make-over. Was there no stopping her now?

END OF DISPATCH 

Members of the Democratic Party were critical of Yellow Dog Friday citing her appearances in Florida at the same time as the run-up to the South Carolina Democratic Primary as being ineffective and divisive. When asked why she was in Florida rather than South Carolina Yellow Dog growled, "The only way we're going to get rid of Republicans is by tracking them down and eating them. While the mainstream Democratic candidates were busy stabbing each other in the back I was busy sinking my teeth into Republicans."

Uncomfirmed reports claim several prominent Florida Republicans have disappeared since Yellow Dog entered the Sunshine State.

The Clinton and Obama campaigns have yet to respond to Yellow Dog's charges but on Thursday night Barak Obama announced that Oprah Winfrey would be his running mate. When asked what she thought of Obama's pick for the number 2 slot, Yellow Dog howled, "One million comedians out of work and Obama's telling jokes-- everybody knows vegetables can't become Vice-presidents. Gray D. Cat will be a much more active VP than some slimy old vegetable."

Wild And Wooly Won't Work 

Unfortunately, I'm way too exhausted from editing Duke Amboy's Special Reports to thoroughly parse all the idiocies of the follow AP report, but I would like to have it on the record. "Feed the sheep," indeed...

Clinton gains black endorsements in S.C.

Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton gathered emotional endorsements Friday from two prominent black women who implored blacks to set aside their excitement about her rival Barack Obama's campaign to be the first black president.

In the run-up to Saturday's South Carolina Democratic primary, the first in which blacks could play a pivotal role, Clinton has spoken to mostly white audiences while her husband, Bill, the former president, has courted blacks. But that changed Friday when she made an explicit pitch for black support in a speech at a historically black college in South Carolina's state capital surrounded by prominent black supporters.

The New York senator was welcomed to the stage by two black colleagues from her home state — former New York Mayor David Dinkins and House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel — who praised Clinton as a public servant and friend.

Polls show blacks strongly supporting Obama in the state, while Clinton and former Sen. John Edwards roughly split the white vote.

Stacey Jones, a Benedict College Dean who described herself as "a woman, an African American, a size 9 wide and any other label you choose to use," said she understood why many blacks might pause before voting Saturday for Clinton.

"For some of us it may take a very, very bold step to walk into that voting booth and focus on our community's future rather than acting on pure emotion. Let's do the right thing and elect Sen. Hillary Clinton president of the United States," she said to applause.

She was followed by Richland County Councilwoman Bernice Scott, who bluntly told the audience "this race is not about race or gender."

Scott said the decision should come down to which candidate can "feed the sheep."

"Sen. Clinton has a record that can feed everybody. And we need to be fed," she said.

The former first lady has tried to remain above the fray most of the week after an unusually rancorous debate Monday where she and Obama traded barbs. She's criticized President Bush on the stump and rarely mentioned her top rival, leaving Bill Clinton to challenge the Illinois senator more directly.

But she's gotten in her digs occasionally. Friday's came as she praised Rangel while implicitly criticizing Obama for being overeager.

"He serves as chair of the most important committee in the United States Congress," Clinton said of Rangel. "He didn't get there by leapfrogging. He got there by lots of hard work."

Earlier Friday, Clinton said she must respond in kind to Obama's attacks even though she'd rather keep the campaign focused on their differences on public policy issues.

"I try not to attack first, but I have to defend myself — I do have to counterpunch," Clinton told NBC's "Today Show."

"I took a lot of incoming fire for many, many months and I was happy to absorb it because obviously, you know, I felt that was part of my responsibility. But toward the end of a campaign you have to set the record straight," the New York senator said.

Clinton, Obama and their campaigns have exchanged increasingly hard-hitting jabs over race, his relationship with a Chicago developer, her vote on the Iraq war, and other issues. Clinton stopped airing a South Carolina radio ad critical of Obama on Thursday and Obama took down his radio response in an attempt to cool the angry public spat.

NBC also aired an undated photo of Sen. Clinton and her husband posing with real estate developer and fast-food magnate Antoin "Tony" Rezko, who faces trial next month on federal corruption charges. During a Democratic debate Monday, Sen. Clinton referred to Rezko as a slumlord from whom Obama has accepted thousands of dollars in campaign contributions over the course of his career.

"I don't know the man, I wouldn't know him if he walked in the door. I don't have a 17-year relationship with him," Clinton said Friday. "There is a big difference between standing somewhere taking a picture with someone you don't know, haven't seen since, and having a relationship."

Clinton was asked about possible backlash against Bill Clinton, who has repeatedly criticized Obama's campaign.

"Everybody needs to take a deep breath," Sen. Clinton told CBS' "Early Show." She said her husband "gets excited, gets really passionate about making the case for me."

 

Voters near Orlando, Florida were treated to yet another impromptu address by Yellow Dog this morning as she stood on a cypress tree stump and howled at those who had gathered to hear her positions. When asked about the economy the candidog replied, "It doesn't take a dog's nose to sniff out the problems with America's economy. All one needs do is look at where everything is made and who is getting paid. American puppies deserve jobs every bit as much as Pekingese puppies deserve jobs."

When asked about her proposal to give buyers of StreetPlanes an unconditional $2,000.oo tax rebate Yellow Dog barked, "StreetPlanes get 200 miles per gallon and they're made in America. It's the perfect way to put more Americans to work and reduce America's dependence on expensive imported oil."

Reporters then noted that Yellow Dog discontinued her blog at the end of the 2004 campaign and berated her for not having her own blog today but Yellow Dog replied by saying, "I used to have my own blog for a while, but I decided to go back to pointless, incessant barking as it seems to be taken more seriously."

In Which Two Candidates Let Their Guard (And Their Pants) Down

by Duke Amboy

"I regret that I have but one wife to give for my country," Huck delivered the punchline.

It was another Romney crack. I tried hard to laugh - the painkillers and Old Granddad helped a bit - for about the fortieth time. There's a horrible rate of attrition, hanging out with Mike Huckabee. He wants so desperately to be loved, like some over-eager spaniel that brings you slobber-covered slippers every morning, in the vain hope that you'll scratch him behind the ear. Huck wanted it too. It hung around him like an almost-visible aura of need...

In an effort to appeal to the "healthy-lifestyle" demographic, what I call the fitness nazis, the man lost over one hundred pounds of body weight in an alarmingly short period of time. I wanted to know how he'd managed it.

"Well, I'll tell you, Duke. I had a pretty significant length of the old plumbing removed, and then I had the remainder rerouted."

He was willing to demonstrate. We went into the posh, marble-festooned lavatory of his HQ, where he simultaneously dropped his slacks and produced a cellophane-wrapped sandwich from a jacket pocket. In two bites it was gone, decimated: the infamous Huckabee appetite. Soon after I heard a sort of wet rattle from deep inside the man, he let out a plaintive grunt, and there was the distinct plash of waste matter into the porcelain bowl.

I congratulated him: "Ingenious, sir. You've circumvented your digestive tract entirely. It goes from foodstuff to shit in a matter of seconds." I was heavily impressed. This was commitment. Imagine what the man would do with our armed forces, our Federal Reserve...dare I say, our Girl Scouts of America?

"What's your plan for Florida, sir?" It was the right moment for a sudden shift in tactic. Catch 'em with their pants down has never so literally been the proper adage...

"Well, you know, Duke, so far it's been me and McCain. Swapping body blows back and forth across this great land of ours. It's been a split decision every time. Too close, too close to call," he lamented.

"Rudy's been kicking back," he continued, "taking it easy like the pampered little nancy boy we both know he is. But he's gonna come out swinging in Florida. It's his own backyard, is how he puts it. Well, my friend, we've got a few surprises in store for that dago bastard..."

"Care to elaborate, sir?" Hope springs eternal, but I knew it was futile. "Negative ads? Muckraking journalism? Pictures of Rudy and a eight-year-old Cuban boy?" But Huck only smiled, that ghost of maliciousness past that still haunts his emaciated, hang-dog face...

It was the best I could hope for. I'd penetrated deeper into the Huckabee campaign than any other correspondent and I'd emerged relatively unscathed. One of the Hucksters had confiscated my No-Doz. Otherwise, it was something of a coup...

One of my paid informants told me where I could find McCain and his Straight Talk Express: parked behind a massage parlor called Two Wongs not far from the perimeter of Fort Jackson. McCain was inside, four wisp-thin Oriental girls working him over. He offered me two, but, in order to preserve my objectivity, I refused...

"Senator," I opened, "I have just two words for you, sir: Liberty University..."

McCain's eyes shot open and his face reddened. And it wasn't just what one of the girls was doing with John-boy. He was alarmed, abashed. He'd made a deal with the devil and he knew it...

"Falwell," he sputtered. "Well, Falwell's alright. Those kids are our future." He was acting just like the Obaminator - some politico robot programmed to spout sound bytes and bicker with other candidates over who loved Ronnie Reagan more. It sickened me, but I comforted myself with the knowledge that, with one well-placed chop to his carotid artery, I could put a stop to his going over any further to the Dark Side.

But maybe McCain needed help. His face seemed to show it. He was clearly in pain, torn between what he knew he should do, and what he had to do in order to remain "viable," as they call it...

"What can I do for you, Senator?" I was willing to help. I had no vested interest in the man or his party, but as one suffering human being pleading to another, I found it impossible to deny him. "Oxycontin? I think I still have a couple pills rattling around here somewhere." I patted myself down, found the pill bottle and handed it over to the Senator.

"Maybe later," he sighed, handing the bottle off to one of his aides.

He fixed me with his profoundly blue eyes. "But are there enough, Duke? Can it really end the pain?"

I knew what the man had in mind. And I couldn't say I blamed him...

END OF DISPATCH 

Early this morning, reporters caught up with Yellow Dog at a watering hole in a rest area alongside Interstate 95 just north of Brunswick, Georgia where Yellow Dog was speaking with a group of truck drivers who had come together for an impromptu gathering in Yellow Dog's honor. In between laps of water from the hole and choking down on snacks provided by the truckers Yellow Dog addressed their concerns with the nation's current political situation.

One trucker asked her position on the Iraq War to which Yellow Dog replied, "I lost lots of friends while I served in Iraq, they've done their part and it's time to bring them home once and for all."

When asked about the rising cost of fuel-- a common concern among the truckers at the gathering-- Yellow Dog replied, "It's time America exercised her right to be energy independent. America needs to invest in a new energy infrastructure that allows for lots of ways to fuel America's cars, trucks, buses, trains, boats and planes. America should not be held hostage by foreign governments who use oil profits to fund terrorism. America should legalize Hemp, invest in solar power, build energy efficient homes and cars, and start putting the jobs where the people live so they can walk to work and be healthier which will in turn reduce the escalating cost of health care in this nation. America should do everything she can do to end our addiction to imported fossil fuels and all fossil fuels."

The truckers agreed Yellow Dog is the bitch they plan to vote for. Seems the only complaints to be heard were from the reporters gasping for air as they struggled to keep up with the blistering pace Yellow Dog has set thus far.