From the “Taking Liberties” satire in today’s Washington Post:
Bill Clinton has enlisted the services of dozens of friends to produce a celebrity cookbook to raise money for his presidential library. Not to be outdone, President Bush is planning his own celebrity cookbook complete with these favorite recipes:
Treasury Secretary John Snow’s Upside-Down Cake: Start with one healthy economy with a projected budgetary surplus of $300 billion. Add $1 trillion in tax cuts over 10 years and several ongoing wars and bake for 21/2 years. Remove cake from hot oven, turn upside down and voilà, you’ve got a $450 billion deficit. Repeat for the next three years for a decadent confection.
John Ashcroft’s Constitutional Purée: Start with separated church and state. Mix with an assortment of diluted civil liberties. Add your choice of faith-based initiatives and simmer surreptitiously until church and state are well blended.
And finally, the president’s own Texas-Style Barbecued Goose: Combine generous dollops of suspect intelligence with a unilateral, nation-building worldview to justify an ongoing state of war. Mix in tax-cut giveaways and record-breaking deficits and your goose could be cooked by Nov. 2, 2004. Serve with a Crawford whine of your choice.
