by ANDY BOROWITZ
New York Times, April 18, 2004
In the summer of 2001 the director of central intelligence, George Tenet, was running around with his hair on fire. When told that Mr. Tenet's hair was on fire, President Bush replied, "I'm tired of swatting flies." The president added that the only thing worse than swatting flies was shaking trees. "You can swat all the flies and shake all the trees you want, but it still won't be a silver bullet," the president said.
As August wore on Mr. Tenet's hair blazed out of control. Mr. Bush received a President's Daily Brief, or P.D.B., entitled, "Fire in Tenet's Hair May Spread to His Eyebrow." Unfortunately, the P.D.B. gave no precise information about when the fire might spread, or to which eyebrow. It was a "historical document," written on yellowing parchment in fancy, "Old English" lettering. Besides, as the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, pointed out, Mr. Tenet's hair had been on fire since the early 1990's. "Our policy toward the fire raging on George Tenet's head was by and large the one we inherited from the Clinton administration," Dr. Rice said. "It was a policy of containment."
By mid-August Mr. Tenet complained that having his entire head engulfed in flames was making it difficult for him to connect the dots. President Bush said that connecting the dots was a waste of time, right up there with swatting flies and shaking trees. The president asked Mr. Tenet to investigate whether there was a link between his burning hair and Saddam Hussein. Specifically, Mr. Bush asked if Saddam Hussein might have "snuck up" behind Mr. Tenet's head at some point with a book of matches or a Bic lighter. Mr. Tenet said that, to the best of his knowledge, Saddam Hussein had been nowhere near his head. "Wrong answer," said Mr. Bush, leaving for his ranch in Crawford, Tex.
By the end of the summer, Mr. Tenet's hair had completely gone up in smoke. His head was now smooth and shiny, making the C.I.A. director look eerily like a silver bullet. Dr. Rice cautioned against making too much of this resemblance: "George Tenet may have looked like a silver bullet, but he was not the silver bullet we were looking for." Concurring with Dr. Rice were Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell and an unmanned Predator drone
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