Will Durst Comments on Dennis Hastart….

DENNIS HASTERT’S CROW PLATE SPECIAL

Hubris. (hyoo-bris)-noun. Excessive pride or
self-confidence. Arrogance.

That’s the dry dictionary definition. But if you want
to see hubris in all its gooey partisan glory, check
out the machinations Speaker of the House, Dennis
Hastert, is going through as he twists and turns like
a Chinese acrobat in zero gravity reacting to the
Congressional page scandal. His first vault into the
Olympics of sleaze was picking up the phone. Why? To
express his outrage at Florida Republican Mark Foley’s
inappropriate overtures to young boys? Unh, no. Okay,
to console the families of the children ensnared in
these lurid imprecations? Well, no, not precisely that
either. Then, to demand an investigation into why the
report on Foley’s behavior was buried by his office?
Well, unh, no, no, not really, no. Wait! Wait! Let me
think. Unh, no. No. Fraid not.

He called to demand an investigation into who leaked
the report. In the face of overwhelmingly lurid
evidence, his major priority was to cover his ass.
This guy is so transparent I’m surprised he hasn’t
leased himself out during winter recess as a storm
window. By refusing to investigate, he allowed a
sexual predator to remain chairman of the House Caucus
on Missing and Exploited Children, which would be
funny in a sad and degrading way if only it weren’t.
But it does give a whole new meaning to “no child left
behind.”

After receiving a quick pep talk from Team Bush about
the best defense being a ludicrous offense, Hastert
next began to lash out at the liberal press and
claimed the scandal was a plot engineered by
Democrats. His proof: with just a month before the
election, the timing is too pat, AND its the perfect
political strategy. Let me see. Good timing, perfect
political strategy. Naw, doesn’t sound like any
Democrat I know. This charge is especially amusing
when you realize what he’s saying is “hey, its how we
would have done it.”

The sticky questions facing the Speaker now are
threefold. What did he know, when did he know it and
has he ever eaten a meal with less than a pound of red
meat covered in bearnaise sauce on the plate? I’m not
saying he’s guilty simply because he bloated up like a
poisoned toad, but dude, have you ever heard of
vegetables? Carrots: supposed to be good for the eyes
and might help you see the story you’ve been peddling
is slipperier than the sweat on a wire wearing
lobbyist’s palm. First your office knew about Foley’s
hinky emails a few weeks ago. Then it was earlier this
year. Or was it last spring? Early 2005? Just answer
this: first or second season of “Lost?”

Now a former aide to the Prince of Pages himself says
he warned the Speaker’s Offive three years ago that
odd behavior was afoot. Did the House office supply
clerk deliver defective calendars? We all know why
Foley got a pass. Hard to rally the base when the
Family Values Party morphs into the North American Man
Boy Love Association Party. Especially during an
election year. And since the Speaker is destined to
spend an inordinate amount of time in front of cameras
explaining his calenderic malfunctions, I’d suggest
he’d lose a couple of pounds and try a salad with that
hubris pie and side of crow he’s about to get stuffed
down his throat. Maybe a raw Spinach salad.

Comic, writer, actor, former page boy haircut wearer,
Will Durst, wonders how soon before they try to lay
all this on Clinton. Wait! Too late. They already
tried.

Catch Durst in stand- up mode in Portland, Oregon, at
Jimmy Mack’s on Sunday, October 8th and at the
Improvisation at Harveys in Lake Tahoe, Wednesday the
11th through Sunday the 15th.

Too late to catch Durst in radio talk show mode on
Keeping it Real with Will & Willie on KQKE The station
decided to go in a different direction. The good news
is sleeping until 10. The bad news is no negotiations
with other radio stations until February 2nd.

will durst
durst@willdurst.com
willdurst.com

Unlikely Terrorists On No-Fly List

Oct. 5, 2006(CBS) 60 Minutes, in collaboration with the National Security News Service, has obtained the secret list used to screen airline passengers for terrorists and discovered it includes names of people not likely to cause terror, including the president of Bolivia, people who are dead and names so common, they are shared by thousands of innocent fliers.

Steve Kroft’s investigation, in which an ex-FBI agent who worked on its al Qaeda task force says the list of 44,000 names is ineffective, will be broadcast this Sunday, Oct. 8, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

The former FBI agent, Jack Cloonan, knew the list that was hastily assembled after 9/11, would be bungled. “When we heard the name list or no-fly list … the eyes rolled back in my head, because we knew what was going to happen,” he says. “They basically did a massive data dump and said, ‘Okay, anybody that’s got a nexus to terrorism, let’s make sure they get on the list,’” he tells Kroft.

The “data dump” of names from the files of several government agencies, including the CIA, fed into the computer compiling the list contained many unlikely terrorists. These include Saddam Hussein, who is under arrest, Nabih Berri, Lebanon’s parliamentary speaker, and Evo Morales, the president of Bolivia. It also includes the names of 14 of the 19 dead 9/11 hijackers.

But the names of some of the most dangerous living terrorists or suspects are kept off the list.

The 11 British suspects recently charged with plotting to blow up airliners with liquid explosives were not on it, despite the fact they were under surveillance for more than a year.

The name of David Belfield who now goes by Dawud Sallahuddin, is not on the list, even though he assassinated someone in Washington, D.C., for former Iranian leader Ayatollah Khomeini. This is because the accuracy of the list meant to uphold security takes a back seat to overarching security needs: it could get into the wrong hands. “The government doesn’t want that information outside the government,” says Cathy Berrick, director of Homeland Security investigations for the General Accounting Office.

Berrick says Homeland Security would probably agree that leaving such names off the list is a concern. The Transportation Security Administration is trying to fix the list through a program called “Secure Flight,” says Berrick, but after three years and an estimated $144 million spent on the program, there’s “nothing tangible yet,” she says.

Even if the list is made more accurate, it won’t help thousands of innocent travelers who share a common name on the list and who get detained, sometimes for hours, when they attempt to fly.

Gary Smith, John Williams and Robert Johnson are some of those names. Kroft talked to 12 people with the name Robert Johnson, all of whom are detained almost every time they fly. The detentions can include strip searches and long delays in their travels.

“Well, Robert Johnson will never get off the list,” says Donna Bucella, who oversaw the creation of the list and has headed up the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center since 2003. She regrets the trouble they experience, but chalks it up to the price of security in the post-9/11 world. “They’re going to be inconvenienced every time … because they do have the name of a person who’s a known or suspected terrorist,” says Bucella.

Cloonan, when shown a copy of the list from March 2006, tells Kroft, “I did see Osama bin Laden, both with an “O” in the first name and “U” in the second…I was glad to see that. But some of the other names I see here…I just have to scratch my head and say, ‘My God, what have we created here?’”