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Fraggin'

By Bill Shunas

I suppose many of you are disappointed that you've got George Bush for president now. You think you're going to have four more years like the last eight under Reagan. I know that's a depressing thought, but maybe it won't be as bad.

Look at the bright side. You won't have a president who falls off to sleep during meetings and lets wacko aids make policy. You'll be rid of an administration which probably set the record for having the most sleazeballs out to use their government positions for personal gain. Maybe this new guy will have at least some intelligence. What did Iron Lady Maggie Thatcher say about Ronnie Boy? Something about how she's fond of the dear boy, but he doesn't have too much upstairs. Then again, maybe that's better than having a smart reactionary who might do a better job of screwing us.

But, on the bright side again, we get rid of the Iron Lady Nancy Reagan. I don't know much about Barbara Bush but that Nancy chick was weird, man. I mean, like she had the old boy running the country according to the dictates of her astrologer. And her clothes—she collected clothes like Imelda Marcos collected shoes. Some fashion experts quoted by Time Magazine made a guess as to the value of dresses she wore at public events: they figured that the cost of all different dresses draping her anorexic body was over a million dollars.

The borrowed earrings Nancy wore overseas were supposed to be worth $800,000. Her dresses were borrowed, also, since there is a law against elected officials and their families accepting such opulent gifts. Supposedly, she has even more dresses hidden away. They say she turned Amy Carter's bedroom into a walk-in closet for all the dresses she "borrowed" from fashion designers.

Well I'm glad weird Nancy is gone. Maybe now that she's out of the White House she could get together with Imelda Marcos and go shopping. Imelda, famous for her three-thousand pairs of shoes, also liked dresses. She bought them by the rack just like she bought diamonds by the case.

Maybe they could bring their husbands along on a double date. These guys should like each other. After all, it was President Reagan who gave high praise and support to dictator Ferdinand until the Philippine people put him out on his ass. And they could swap war stories while their wives are tearing through the racks at Christian Dior or ogling diamonds at Tiffany's.

We all heard Ronnie's stories about liberating Nazi concentration camps and his naval aviator adventures during World War II. So what if it was all on some Hollywood set. The stories were good. And Ferdinand is no slouch when it comes to story-telling. Much of his political career was based on his images as a heroic guerrilla fighter against the Japanese during World War II. But thanks to the U.S. Army (bless its little stone heart) we find out different. The army released a report on Marcos' Military career which exposes the lies he told about his military career. It seems that his unit was not controlled adequately during the war "because of the desertion of its commanding officer." And who was the commanding officer? Why, it was Ferdinand the Hero, now famous for being the husband of a woman with 3,000 pairs of shoes.

I imagine a shrink could have fun with the Reagans and the Marcoses. But let's get back to today. We've got a new President now. He can't be as bad as Reagan, can he? His vice-president, on the other hand, is a real loser. How many vice-presidents have we had who were crybabies? The only one I can think of is Richard Nixon when he gave his famous Checkers speech.

Danny Quayle cried because those nasty media people found out he dodged military service in Vietnam which was not a cool thing to do when one is a hawk. But at least he can say that during his service in the Indiana National Guard, there was not one VC attack on Indianapolis. Even so, he'll never measure up to the standards that what's-his-name set during the Reagan years.

So Bush can't be as bad, can he? They say an optimist sees a half glass of water as half full. A pessimist sees it as half empty. Reagan is gone now, and so is his weird wife. That's reason for optimism. We might have some plain old normal closet fascists in the White House now. So maybe the glass looks one-eighth full instead of seven-eighths empty.

Grenade

Dr. John Fronvall, the Veterans Administration's Chief medical officer is the recipient of our grenade of the month. A survey of VA hospitals revealed that they had an abnormally high death rate. Dr. John ordered another survey which was to be restructured so as not to have a result with such a large number of hospitals with an abnormally high death rate.

Now maybe the good doctor didn't want such a high rate made public because he's a friend of veterans and didn't want to scare us about VA hospitals. But I doubt it. More likely he didn't want to deal with the problem. Better to cover up the statistics, cover us his ass, and cover the VA's ass while vets die.

—Sp5 Willy(Ret.) A.K.A. Bill Shunas