Lame Duck Nearly Lamed - By Jimmy Petrol

It may be, of course, that President Duck, I mean Bush, is just so darned impulsive that the Secret Service isn't able to keep up with him well enough to offer any real security to his person. On the other hand, it may be that even the elite members of the President's personal goon squad can't stomach his grinning mug to the extent that they have quit watching him.

Either way, it is tragically hilarious that Bush's security is so lax that shoes can be lobbed at him by foreign journalists ,as happened just yesterday in Iraq. Of course, American journalists, not to mention Greek, Turkish, French, British and Cuban journalists, are chafing at the bit for a chance to follow suit. American law being what it is, these hopefuls will have to travel outside the U.S. for a real shoe-throwing opportunity.

As we have been told every time we fly, shoes often have explosives hidden in the soles. We dutifully place our footgear into the airport machinery and hope we didn't buy the wrong pair, that pair of shoes cleverly placed in the racks at the shoe store by bomb-building terrorists. We know all about shoe-bombs. So it comes as a surprise that any shoe could come within an ace of the broad and ample forehead of our Commander in Chief.

After all, it isn't as if there isn't any danger that the President could be killed or seriously injured by such an attack; it has long been evident that George is soft in the head. Even were he the possessor of the thick, cave-man skull he is so often accused of owning, the danger of the shoe-missile cannot be understated. With little effort and no real cost, the heels of journalistic loafers (no, not the talking heads at Fox and CNN, real shoes) can be filled with lethal and virtually un-detectable amounts of high-carbon steel or even chunks of depleted uranium. The depleted uranium is quite dense and should be readily available in Iraq as it is used in U.S. anti-tank rounds.

Even a minor league baseball player can hurl a baseball at speeds near 100 miles-per-hour. It is within the realm of possibility that an American journalist, even fed on caviar, Melba-Toast and platitudes as they are, could work up a pitching arm and present the President with an missile he can't dodge. Think of it....there one minute is George W., prattling away about how well things are going and whammo...there is a dent in his forehead and Cheney is president.....

Oh my.

Cheney is president!

Hoo Boy!

Wait. This is serious.

We can assume, due to the recent nearly successful shoe attack upon our densest and dimmest, that journalists the world over are this minute having their loafers refitted. They are, no doubt, hurling practice baseballs in secret training camps and amusement parks. It can only be a matter of time before one of the liberal media makes out and clonks our Chief of State into the next world.

Of course, if George W. is a secret Muslim, he has nothing to worry about, what with the numerous virgins (what sex and genus would they be, I wonder?) awaiting his martyred arrival in the Heaven of his choice. Otherwise, he may not be eager to go to his "reward" prematurely, what with the strange and unfathomable mind of god and all that. If he is not a secret Muslim, he may want to consider a deathbed conversion to the Muslim faith if he is to dodge the spiritual bullet as well as he can dodge a shoe.

But we want the Presidential Ass protected. They very idea that Cheney could be president for even one second is more than this reporter can imagine. All men and women of conscience should call upon the Secret Service to protect our President without fail. While it is understandable that the people that have been closest to George have grown weary of such a bootless, thankless task we must remind them that they are all that stand between Lord Cheney and world domination. We have come too far with Georgie Porgie to loose him now. How odd that he does, in the end, protect us from evildoers after all.