LUDIC LOG

This will be a short one, since the good graces of the Trav-L-Bar have rendered me insensate through the medium of Irish whiskey.

Ladies and gentlemen of America, a colossal hoax is being foisted on you. If you look in various national news organs today, you will be presented with the story that our alleged President, Mr. George W. Bush, "marched" in the St. Patrick's Day parade here in my beloved city of Chicago.

THIS IS A LIE!

I was in attendance at this exciting celebration of the national character of Ireland, and I can assure you, Mr. Bush "marched" for all of three minutes -- just long enough, in other words, for the cameras to get some nice pictures of him "marching". I was stationed a little past the halfway point of the parade route, and all my friends and I saw of the President was his smirking, jelly-like face behind six inches of smoky bulletproof glass in a limo that was more tank than car. He basically walked around for about 15 feet while the cameras rolled, and then the Chickenshit-in-Chief ducked right the hell into his luxury armored personnel carrier, surrounded by a billion Secret Service agents, and was never seen again.

What particularly galls me is that by simply appearing at our parade (if you can call what he did an appearance), he not only cast a depressing paramilitary pallor over the celebration -- there were Secret Service guys, Special Forces soldiers, and (no kidding) black military helicopters all over the place, but also significantly increased the chances of a terrorist attack taking place in aid of assassinating him. His mere presence put rabble like my friends and I at a greater risk of dying than if he hadn't been there. For putting us in harm's way and heshing our vibe, wasn't walking the whole damn parade route the least he could have done?

I'm not sure, but I do know this: 2 years ago, Al Gore was the grand marshal of the Chicago St. Patrick's Day parade, and he was right there, pressing the flesh, mixing with the common man, scared shitless to be sure but nonetheless putting himself out there for all to see, along the whole route. Remember this, my friends, the next time the alleged president dresses up in his macho clothes.