This week Team W is going ga-ga over the mushrooming national scandal. Questions are raised in all quarters regarding the White House's handling of information that might have prevented the September 11th attacks. Sorting through the charges and counter-charges has been harder than following a bouncing ball in a room full of mousetraps.
 
Our administration contacts have yielded little more than the widely-held belief that the WTC attack was planned and coordinated by Tom Daschle and Hillary Clinton -- the pair also responsible for the Cuban bio-terrorism program.
 
We knew there was something fishy about those two. Wake up, America! Wake up!
 
To counter the increasingly devastating revelations, the administration has gone to the mattresses, trotting out everyone from the President's wife to his chauffeur's third cousin. But each spokesperson faces the same Everest of credibility: to explain why documents indicating there was at least a possibility of an airplane-bombing of the World Trade Center failed to convince anyone there was at least a possibility of an airplane-bombing of the World Trade Center.
 
Explanations and evasions abound: one school of thought has it that the amassed information was of little use because, in the words of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, it was "insufficiently granular." Mr. Rumsfeld is by nature and design one of the most insufficiently granular of men, and his expertise in this regard is not easily discounted.
 
If we follow the Secretary's line of reasoning it would appear that the vast amount of public and covert funding devoted to national security typically yields a superabundance of information that, while academically interesting, is incapable of useful application -- rather like a hermit with a crate of condoms.
 
Vice President Dick Cheney has fired back at administration critics, calling them "contemptible" --again an area of personal expertise we are loath to challenge.
 
Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott has called the criticisms "despicable" and issues a wounded plea for equity, saying:
 
     "For us to be talking like our enemy is George W. Bush and not Osama bin Laden, that's not right,"
 
Mr. Lott may have overlooked the mitigating fact that we at least know where Mr. Bush is.
 
Purely as a distraction we've been playing a little game around the office, in which we try to guess which of the Titanic's lifeboats departing Presidential Counselor Karen Hughes would have commandeered.
 
And now, in a coincidence rarely seen outside of an Horatio Alger novel, the administration informs us that they have -- this just in -- new evidence of a burgeoning terrorist attack on the U.S. We don't yet know the identity of the assailants, (it can't be Al Quaida, because we wiped them out) but they are thought to have red eyes and pointy little teeth.
 
In view of this renewed threat, the W Team urges the public to cease all questioning and finger-pointing, and let the administration get on with the job of keeping America strong and safe.
 
And quiet.
 
In view of the rapidly deteriorating conditions, we have raised our building's threat level to orange-tending-to-persimmon, and are prepared to escalate to red-ochre-with-cerulean-cross-hatching the moment that appears necessary.
 
Needless to say, the First Cheerleader has not been a dispassionate observer of the week's events, and is following closely those aspects he is able to understand. In this week's non-specific threat message, "Horse Shot", he offers reassurance to a concerned citizen.
 
Meanwhile, on the international front: we here at Casa Del doble-ve always welcome the views of former President Jimmy Carter. But we must take exception to statements he made during his historic Cuban visit:

     "Our two nations have been trapped in a destructive state of belligerence for 42 years, and it is time for us to change our relations..."

Not so fast, Mr. Carter! Aren't we forgetting about a little thing called "freedom"? And how about what the President said about "the bankrupt vision that debases freedom," how about that, huh?

Our relations cannot change until the dictatorial and oppressive policies of the past are renounced; until there is open recognition of past mistakes and demonstrated committment to liberty and justice; until we see clear evidence of free and fair elections.

Frankly, we do not believe this will happen under the present failed system, thus we continue to press for regime-change, insisting upon the immediate resignation and removal of the repressive and corrupt leadership that continues to sully the very name of democracy.

And Cuba should think about doing the same thing.
 
While on this subject: President Bush rejected suggestions that Mr. Carter's remarks would have any observable effect on his foreign policy, or that they would cause him to repaint his elephant.
 
And here's a silver lining: Whatever damage the revelations may cause to the President's reputation, at least Americans will now be freed of the scourge of VD (Veneration Disease).
 
That's it for this week, compadres; y'all keep connectin' them dots, and let us know if it turns out to be a picture of anyone you recognize.
 
Happy trials,
Hank.