July 10, 2003
WEST POINT, NY – President George W. Bush today announced the creation of a new federal intelligence agency. The agency, officially known as the Defense Misinformation Agency, will provide the administration with only desirable intelligence.
"Our nation has a right to be told what I want it to hear," the President said in a speech at the United States Military Academy at West Point. "With our new Defense Misinformation Agency, we will have the capability to sway public opinion even more. George Orwell, eat your heart out!" the President said to applause.
"With this new agency, we don’t have to wait for threats to national security to be checked. We can just move ahead on whatever information justifies our agenda," the President said.
"This new agency will streamline the decision-making process greatly," said Secretary of State Colin Powell. "We will no longer have to verify threats as credible. The Defense Misinformation Agency will remove one step from a process that can impair quick decisions that have long-lasting consequences. We can decide on a course of action preemptively and manipulate public opinion after the fact."
The creation of the agency drew fire from Democrats, who claim that the federal government lacks the funding for a new agency of such size. Vice President Dick Chaney told reporters after the conference, "Their fears are not justified. Halliburton and its subsidiaries have made a good-faith pledge of the necessary funds."
"We have darn good intelligence that Iraq had a weapons of mass destruction program. Even better, we have rootin’ tootin’ good intelligence that the program was linked Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy. Yee-haw!" he said in the speech, referring to his administration’s prior report that the deposed Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, had been negotiating and executing arms transactions with the figures of folklore.
"I think the burden is on those people who think he didn't have weapons of mass destruction to tell the world where they are," said out-going White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer.
reported in jest by John Eischeid
(NOTE: The quotation from Ari Fleischer is real. He said it in a press conference on July 9, and it was reported in the Washington Post the week of this article. Maybe he should have the burden of telling us how we are supposed to make sense of his statement. Bush really did say "darn good intelligence," too. I only wish I had made that up.)
Reported in jest by John Eischeid