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No steroids here
Slugger Palmeiro’s denial is less than convincing

Well, there is an upside for baseball star Rafael Palmeiro, who has been suspended by Major League Baseball for flunking a drug test, after telling a special Congressional hearing in March that he had never used steroids. This gives him a key credential on his resume — lying to Congress — for being hired as a high-level Bush administration official. He can expect a call from Boy George any day now.

Palmeiro’s congressional performance overshadows his very weak claim that the blown test was a complete accident and may have been caused by a supplement. Moron former teammate Jose Canseco’s book accused Mr. 3000 of being on the juice when they played together, and Raffy adamantly defended himself, jabbing his finger in the air as he spoke. Never mind.

This isn’t Palmeiro’s first comeuppance, so to speak, in regard to a pharmaceutical product. Raffy was the first athlete to sign an endorsement deal with Viagra, quite a step for someone involved in the manly Sweaty Sciences. It didn’t go unnoticed by the players and fans. In fact, Palmeiro flipped out during one away game when the home team’s organist (pun unavoidable) insisted on playing the Woody Woodpecker theme song whenever he came to the plate. Big bat you have there, Raffy.

NOT A CHANCE ON THE LAUGH TEST

Here comes liver-lipped, little gollum columnist Robert Novak, trying to get Karl "Turd Blossom" Rove out of a serious pickle, by extolling his own investigative talents.

Novak’s column was the first to expose Valerie Plame as a CIA officer, normally considered a bad thing to do. Prime leak suspect Turd Blossom, the unspeakable porcine advisor to Dubya, is under serious investigation, along with "Scooter" Libby, by a special prosecutor.

Novak now floats the self-serving idea (via a recent column) that he is a king of investigative journalism, and could have found Plame’s name and made the CIA connection by consulting Who’s Who. This doesn’t even pass the laugh test. The sooner this little weasel is whipped before a judge and told to spill the beans, the better. Incidentally, Judith Miller of the New York Times, who didn’t even write about the issue, remains in jail, while Novak and Rove continue to slither around freely.

A SIMPLE PLAN

George W. decided that having John Bolton at the United Nations is so darned important that he would make a special recess appointment and forego further Senate hearings. We, along with most Democrats and many Republicans, consider Mr. Anger Management the wrong guy but, hey, what can you do?

Bush had a simpler option. Since Bolton has been such a lightning rod (and it is obvious that Georgy Boy wanted a certain type of UN ambassador), he should have just gone to the pound and picked up an actual pit bull to nominate. Besides giving the president his type of nominee, it would show that he is big on pets. What could be better than rescuing a homeless mutt from the pound?

THE WONDER OF BILL FRIST

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, the world’s biggest phony outside the Today Show, is trying mightily, with his newfound support for stem cell research, to boost his chances with moderates for his 2008 presidential run. This flies directly in the face of the wild-eyed Christian right suck-up, Dubya the Dumb.

Frist, an actual doctor, got in notoriously hot water with the public — and should have had his medical license suspended — when he did a diagnosis by videotape of political vegetable Terri Schiavo. The MD thought she showed some signs of cognition. It was a vile and despicable act, as reflected in the polls showing how John and Jane Doe were outraged that Congress would stick its nose into the matter. (A creep-laden decision abetted, of course, by Georgie Boy. He showed his total commitment to going where he shouldn’t — yet again — by leaving his Crawford ranch to fly to DC, to sign special legislation regarding the case.) Frist’s perverse scam made the political dog-and-pony even more obscene.

Frist’s statement, that his stem cell stand is based on science, makes Phillipe & Jorge laugh. Science? Do you think this will sway a White House that doesn’t believe the Earth is round? Dubya’s administration, generally the most anti-intellectual since the Catholic Church laughed at Galileo, has cooked the books at the EPA and denied global climate change, so good luck on this one, Billy.

No one — especially the public — will forget to remember Frist’s gutter crawling in the Schiavo fiasco. So don’t bother with 2008, Doc. Just get some Ben Casey reruns to watch on that magic x-ray VCR when the campaign fires up.

FOTO FUNNIES

On Thursday, July 28, your superior correspondents picked up the daily BeloJo to admire the brand, spanking new photo adorning the column of the esteemed M. Charles Bakst, the paper’s political pundit. It looks like Charlie’s vacation away from the rubber chicken circuit served him well, since, if we’re not mistaken, he looks a bit trimmer in the new glamour shot. Also gone is the scowling reporter aspect of his old picture, replaced by a softer look, a bit more quizzical. And you can’t help loving the neater haircut presented by the frequently fashion-challenged columnist. Good job, Charlie! We like the new look.

After perusing the Urinal, as is our custom, we took a look at that day’s New York Times, and found an even stranger photograph on page A-19. There, accompanying a story on the current disposition of a number of bills under consideration by Congress, was an image of someone standing in an elevator. The caption read: "Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island had threatened to work against a gun liability measure, but was thwarted by a tactical maneuver."

Was it a different tactical maneuver that thwarted the Times’ photographer from recognizing that this was decidedly not our Jack Reed? Or had the photographer (Stephen Crowley) just been tipped off that Senator Reed was just coming up in the elevator, so that Crowley could position himself in front of the door, take a quick snapshot, and run? The man in the elevator looked absolutely nothing like Jack. In fact, it was Senator Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama), as confirmed in a correction in the next day’s Times.

Maybe we’re just Vo Dilun homeboys, but P&J think Jack is much better looking than Sessions.

IGNORANCE IS THE BEST DEFENSE

It is often pointed out that ignorance of the law is no defense. That is, unless the law has to do with the requirements for receiving state pensions in the Biggest Little. On Tuesday, the Other Paper revealed that 11 former state workers from the DOT who are currently getting pensions have also been working as consultants to the state under the auspices of the Johnston-based Cataldo Associates construction company.

As the article informed us, there’s no likelihood that any of the mistakenly paid pension money will ever be returned, because the Retirement Board has previously taken the position that "the person may not have been aware of the requirement." The article also notes that handbooks and newsletters received by state employees detail the regulations.

But our favorite line in the story comes from DOT Director James Capaldi: "We had no knowledge of anything like this. No one knew." Well, maybe someone knew, because the story notes in the next paragraph that a letter from the executive director of the state pension system, Frank J. Karpinski, informing the retirees that they were in violation of the regulation, was sent out "days after" the newspaper started inquiring about the situation. This was either unusually quick work by the pension board or . . . well, you take a guess.

Send crabapples and Pulitzer-grade tips to p&j[a]phx.com

The Phillipe & Jorge archives.
Issue Date: August 5 - 11, 2005
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