Beating Around the Bush (28 page)

“Conservatives, anti-environmentalists, polar bears, seals, and penguins.”

I TOLD KNUDSON the other day that the national deficit is now nine trillion dollars.

He said, “And what’s the bad news?”

I said, “It’s not as terrible as it sounds because it’s only $31,500 dollars for each man, woman, and child in the United States.”

Knudson said, “Well I don’t have $31,500.”

I said, “Well if you can’t find it, you’re going to have to get your kid to pay it.”

“My kid would probably spend it on CDs and pot.”

I answered, “Well that’s not going to help us fiscally. If we’re going to make our kids pay our debt, they have to get very serious.
I know they have no respect for the Boomer Generation, but we can’t carry around a nine-trillion-dollar debt on our backs.

Knudson suggested, “I could hold up a bank, because that’s where the money is.”

I replied, “That money has already been spoken for.”

Knudson asked, “How are you going to come up with the money?”

I said, “I’m lucky because I have three children and five grandchildren. They promised if I couldn’t pay it they would.”

Knudson asked, “How can you be sure?”

I said, “My children and grandchildren have never lied to me. Also, by the time they grow up, nine trillion dollars won’t be much money. It will hardly pay the salary of a good baseball player.”

Knudson suggested, “Maybe we can make it an accounting problem. Every corporation seems to be cheating on their taxes. So we could just get accountants to cook the books.”

“No, Knudson.” I said. “You don’t cheat on taxes. If we did the rest of the world would lose respect for us. This country was built on the idea of, ‘No taxation without representation.’ That’s not true anymore because of the lobbyists.”

“What would happen if every man woman and child refused to pay the nine trillion dollars?”

I said, “Perish the thought. I don’t want to see little kids running around the parks refusing to contribute to reducing the deficit. We have a slogan, ‘Let no taxpayer be left behind.’”

Knudson asked, “Does the deficit have anything to do with the government?”

“Heavens, no. The government is very frugal, and spends money only for things that are absolutely necessary, including war.”

Knudson said, “I don’t want to be pro-Bush or anti-Bush. But at the same time I don’t want to owe him money.”

“Why not?”

“Because I know he has a plan to pay off the nine trillion before he leaves office.”

“I’m just warning you,” I said. “If you don’t come up with the $31,500, and if your kid doesn’t, and your grandchild doesn’t, the IRS will take your house away from you.”

Knudson said, “Can we change the subject? I hate to talk about taxes while we’re eating dinner.”

I said, “I probably wouldn’t bring it up if April 15th wasn’t just around the corner.”

Knudson said, “Well, I’ll tell you this, paying taxes makes sick to my stomach.”

“There are only two things that mean anything, Knudson—death and taxes. You can do something about death, but you can’t do anything about taxes.”

HOW DO YOU GET your news in a hospice? Just like everybody else. Some days are good days, and some are bad. Last week was full of good news.

Tom DeLay announced he wasn’t going to run for Congress. In one story he said he was doing God’s will. Another said he could be in trouble for raising money by doing favors.

I was not joyous when I heard the news. DeLay is one of the
few targets in Congress who is known by everyone. When I mention his name I don’t even have to say, “The Hammer.” I don’t know whether people enjoy reading about him because he was once an exterminator, or because as the leader of the House he took favors from Jack Abramoff.

What will the media do without Tom DeLay? We’ll find somebody almost as good, although we will have to wait for the next election.

The next story that the country enjoyed had to do with the president giving Dick Cheney a leak, which he passed on to I. Lewis Libby. The attorney general said the president had a right to leak secret stuff to the public if it’s in our interest. I agreed because Bush is my president and I trust someone who is not afraid to leak top-secret information.

The fall guy is Libby, the vice president’s aide, who passed on the information to newspaper people that former ambassador Joe Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA. No one knows how the president broke the story to Cheney. I think he said, “Dick, I’m going to tell you a CIA secret. Don’t tell anybody except Bob Novak, Judy Miller, or anybody else who likes to print CIA secrets.”

Since Libby has not been tried yet, the story has legs and will be on the front page at least until next week.

The third good story of the week came from, of all places, the
New York Post
. The newspaper has a “Page Six” feature that prints all the gossip that’s fit and not fit to print. One of the Page Six reporters was caught blackmailing a billionaire. He promised not to write anything bad about the victim if he paid $100,000 plus $10,000 a month. Ron Burkle, an investor in supermarkets and all sorts of businesses, told the FBI, and they conducted a sting operation, with photographs, tapes, and other evidence against the blackmailer.

What made it such a good story is that the
New York Times
and the
Daily News
both printed it on their front pages. This was pay-back time against Rupert Murdoch, who owns the
New York Post
, and, people say, Page Six was his favorite feature. What makes it an even stranger story is that the
New York Post
didn’t print anything about it at all.

In any case, I liked the story because it had nothing to do with leaks from the White House.

My favorite story of the week was when an ancient scroll, the Gospel of Judas, was discovered. In the text it turns out that Judas was a good guy and when he blew the whistle on Jesus, it was Jesus’ idea.

It changed a lot of people’s thinking about Judas’ role at the Last Supper. It now also affects people’s Passover plans.

THE REASON AMERICANS feel safe is because the government has all sorts of ways of watching them. The feds can do it from the air, from the ground, and by mail. I feel safer if I know that somebody is eavesdropping on me.

I understand, based on information I have read, that this is how it works. The National Security Agency taps into your phone records and decides if your call is dangerous. For example, if their data bank indicates your mother calls you more than once a week, it will cross-reference the calls with how many times you called her.

Then, based on that, they can alert the FBI as to where your mother lives and her Social Security number.

The FBI may call on your mother’s neighbors to find out what they know about her and how many times a week she calls them.

In case for some reason surveilling your phone calls is not sufficient, the Pentagon has its own system. They track down anybody with a foreign accent and then share this information with the CIA.

The CIA has experts in different languages who are able to trace cell phone calls anywhere in the world.

For example, suppose someone in San Diego calls his brother in Mexico and says he’s sending him money so that the brother can sneak over the border into the United States.

This is a problem for the Immigration Service, which has its own data bank that is plugged into the Western Union money order department.

President Bush has assured the country that everyone’s privacy is guaranteed. This even includes collect calls he makes to Putin.

But this does not mean the government isn’t tapping into newspaper offices to find out who the journalists are talking to.

At this point the Justice Department gets a court order to find out who the journalist has been accepting leaks from.

Once they get the order, they can also search the homes of anyone who works for the telephone company.

A guarantee of privacy is something that all the law enforcement organizations assure the American people they will receive.

Of course, if you’re a terrorist, you are not entitled to privacy—unless you are an American citizen.

Here is what to look for to find out if the government is tracking your telephone calls. If your telephone bill is much larger than you think it should be, somebody is charging calls that you haven’t made.

You cannot complain to the NSA if your children have cell phones.

The easiest way for someone to spy on you is through satellites. A satellite passes over your house every few minutes.

Tracking government officials who are using their phones for personal business is harder to do.

As an American, I sleep better knowing that there are 16 intelligence agencies protecting me. If one fails, there are 15 more to pick up the ball.

The majority of American people, when polled, say they don’t mind the government listening in on them, and they are known as “patriots.”

Then there are those who never call their mothers. Their mothers call them ungrateful.

ART BUCHWALD has written thirty-four books, including two children’s books and two novels. His most recent novel is
Stella in Heaven
(Putnam, 2000) and his most recent collection is
We’ll Laugh Again
(Putnam, 2002). He was the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for “Outstanding Commentary” in 1982, and in 1986 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Mr. Buchwald is a workaholic and has no hobbies.

Copyright © 2005, 2006 by Art Buchwald

 

First trade paperback edition, September 2006

 

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Buchwald, Art.

Beating around the bush / Art Buchwald.—IST ed.

p.cm.

eISBN : 978-1-609-80009-3

1. United States—Politics and government—2001—Humor. 1. Title.

PS3503.U1828B43 2005

814’.54—dc22

2005012063