(c) 1996 Los Angeles Times. All rts. reserv.

02427186                  60668 THE JAUNDICED EYE Oh, No! Chenowethism!

Los Angeles Times (LT) - SUNDAY January 21, 1996 By: Bruce McCall; Bruce
McCall is a regular contributor to the New Yorker. Edition: Home Edition
  Section: Opinion   Page: 3  Pt. M Story Type: Opinion Word Count: 694

TEXT:
    NEW YORK - President Bill Clinton today issued a call for Elvis
Presley and James Dean to "quit torturing their millions of fans, come
out of seclusion, get plastic surgery and physical therapy and resume
their public lives."

    In so doing, the president appeared to be lifting a chapter from the
political handbook of one of his fiercest opponents. Rep. Helen
Chenoweth, the far-right Idaho congresswoman, continues to condemn the
Department of the Interior's use of military helicopters to observe and
harass anti-government citizens in her state--despite being informed
that, in fact, the department has no such machines. Chenoweth claimed
she had no choice but to press her attack, nonetheless, on the ground
that so many of her constituents believe such machines do exist.

    Similarly, the president was forced to admit no proof exists that
Presley and Dean are still alive and in hiding--but that this was
irrelevant. "As president of all the people," he explained, "I am
constitutionally bound to consider and act on their concerns. So they're
nutcakes and dribblechins; they're registered voters, aren't they?"

    Clinton's statement triggered a wave of me-too Chenowethism by
political leaders across the nation. In a speech on the Senate floor
minutes after the president's plea, Sen. Alfonse M. D'Amato (R-N.Y.)
attacked the "foot-dragging and irresponsibility" of Washington
bureaucrats in refusing to immediately airlift all U.S. scientific teams
from the Arctic and Antarctica, citing the danger that they would fall
off the edge of the Earth.

    The senator brushed aside demands for evidence to support his
stunning demand. "Who am I, a loyal servant of the public, to judge?" he
asked. "And, after all, the Flat Earth Society is part of that public."

    Chorusing that "the so-called authorities have turned a blind eye
long enough to this nonexistent menace," Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.)
called for production of stealth fighters to be immediately quadrupled
in order to engage the squadrons of flying saucers responsible for so
many human abductions and grotesque medical experiments in his home
state and throughout the Southwest. Countering widespread claims that
such incidents were mere hearsay, if not paranoid fantasy, McCain said
he was "only reflecting the will of the people, as I was elected to do.
Far be it from me to judge whether they're a few bricks shy of a load."

    Not to be outdone, House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) wielded a
letter just received from the Georgia chapter of the Marlovian Society
and simultaneously demanded at a news conference on the steps of the
Capitol that all busts of "the so-called Bard of Avon," William
Shakespeare, be pulverized in mass public rituals as part of an overdue
literary revisionism movement aimed at crediting Christopher Marlowe as
the real author of Shakespeare's works. "Sure," Gingrich said, "the
Marlowe gang may all be raving idiots--but they're my raving idiots.
Anyway, honestly, what red-blooded American today reads 400-year-old
Limey fairy tales by some guy with long hair wearing pantyhose, whatever
his name?"

    Nor are state governments, according to a report received today,
dragging their feet in the nation's sudden fit of Chenowethism. An order
has just been issued by a joint emergency committee of the Oregon and
Washington state legislatures to apprehend the so-called Sasquatch
monster, a.k.a. "Bigfoot." "It is high time this antisocial marauder was
brought to justice," a spokesman announced, adding that he, or it, could
face heavy legal penalties for failing to submit income tax returns,
hunting without a license, and damaging public property with his/its
oversized footprint. The spokesman had no comment on reports that
operational plans for Sasquatch's apprehension call for Oregon and
Washington state law enforcement personnel to drive in circles, rent
videos and take naps.

    The last word on America's sudden spate of Chenowethism, however,
belongs to Sen. Phil Gramm of Texas, a GOP presidential contender.
Interrupting a meeting on balancing the budget, Gramm told lawmakers to
"call if off, pronto" because all such efforts are now futile and a
waste of taxpayer money. According to information just faxed to his
office by Armageddon America Inc., a religious think tank based in
Lubbock, Tex., "the world will be coming to an end next Tuesday, right
after 'Roseanne.' "*

CAPTION: Drawing: (...), MARIS BISHOFS / for The Times Copyright (c)
                     1996, Times Mirror Company