SYCOPHANTIC PUPPET FOUND GUILTY

The nation is abuzz with the news that former Dick Cheney aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby has been convicted on four counts of being a federal jackass. The only surprise here is that Cheney’s greasy monkey wrench wasn’t potent enough to gum up the gears of justice. How did things come to this pass?

It all started when Libby was accused of outing CIA agent Valerie Plame as a lesbian. Because the Bush administration had publicly accused the gays of hiding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, any such allegation had the effect of political botulism – and not the good kind. Plame’s career in tatters, Libby went on to accuse Meet the Press host Randy Quaid of making the whole thing up. After framing reporter Judith Regan for soliciting incriminating evidence in the form of a murder confession by beloved Naked Gun actor O.J. Simpson, Libby’s machinations began to be perceived as serving no purpose other than his own entertainment. This is when the anthropomorphic vultures began to pull out their silverware, tie napkins around their necks, and greedily lick their chops.

The question of the hour is: where was Cheney during all this? The answer is disarmingly simple: the bathroom. It’s still unclear what he was doing in there, but he failed to emerge for a full three years (a Washington record surpassed only by President William Howard Taft, who spent his entire 1909-1913 term in the bathtub). The next step in the investigation will no doubt involve trying to determine whether Cheney had a cell phone with him. If he did, the whole house of cards can be expected to fall like so many dominos.

Nicknamed for the way that, during potty training, he would wipe his behind by dragging it across the ground like a dog, “Scooter” Libby leaves behind a rich legacy of governmental malfeasance. As a State Department employee in the 1980s, he was charged with accelerating the fall of the USSR by making demeaning crank calls to top Communist Party officials. Working for the Pentagon in the early 1990s, he argued against intervention in Bosnia on the grounds that Balkan people “smell like hamsters.” More recently, as Cheney’s Chief of Staff, he chose a screaming chartreuse for the color of the Vice President’s bed linens.

Libby’s lawyers have already declared that they’re going to appeal the ruling. Meanwhile, Cheney’s press secretary recently announced that the VP “has to take a whiz,” which most likely means a further period of self-imposed exile. However, just because the cookie jar snapped closed on his hand, severing it, doesn’t mean that Libby won’t keep busy: his autobiography – I, Lewis “Scooter” Libby – will be released by HarperCollins this fall.