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Call them scoops. Or... Why Wait for News? Let's Create the News!By Rick Horowitz
It's the top of the hour -- here's what's happening: * Eager to add CBS star David Letterman to their ABC lineup without losing longtime "Nightline" anchor Ted Koppel, executives at the Walt Disney Company are now said to be considering a compromise solution: using Letterman and Koppel as co-hosts of a new late-night program. Said a senior Disney executive, "We think there's a real audience out there for 'Stupid Pet Tricks of the Congo.'" * While the White House continues to resist releasing information about Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force, newspaper reports have now revealed that 18 of the energy industry's 25 largest contributors to the Republican Party met with the task force last year as it formulated administration energy policy. Additional documents to be released this week are expected to reveal that the sun rises in the east, and that water runs downhill. * They may have abandoned plans for a Pentagon Office of Strategic Influence, but Bush administration officials are said to be furious over the leaks that forced them to scrap the controversial misinformation program before it ever got off the ground. Said one top official, "If you can't lie to foreigners, who can you lie to?" * White House press secretary Ari Fleischer has withdrawn his recent comments blaming former president Bill Clinton's peacemaking efforts for the escalating bloodshed in the Middle East. Said Fleischer, "I meant to blame him for the escalating bloodshed in India and Pakistan." * On Capitol Hill, conflicting testimony has led investigators to consider asking former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling to take a lie-detector test. They also considered asking for a blood test, but abandoned the idea when they realized Skilling was totally bloodless. * With campaign-finance reform legislation still tied up in Congress, House Speaker Dennis Hastert denied today that he had ever compared the battle over the bill to "Armageddon." "What I said," Hastert explained, "is, 'Ahm a-gettin' pretty tired of all this arguin'!'" * Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman declared once again this morning that it pained him to say so. * A recent series of fundraising events has ignited speculation that former vice president Al Gore is considering another run for the White House in 2004. Democrats on Capitol Hill and elsewhere reported that, as of late last night, they were still managing to contain their excitement. * The Republican National Committee demanded today that Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle stop beating his wife and drowning small animals. * New controversy this week from a newly released batch of tapes from the Nixon White House, as the former president is heard complaining that Jews have too much influence in government. "Look at the Justice Department, it's full of Jews," Nixon says on one of the tapes. "The lawyers in government are damn Jews." The former president's defenders insist that the comments didn't reflect Nixon's true sentiments. Said one former colleague, "Everyone knows what a great kidder he was!" * The truce between rival teams of genetic researchers seems to have broken down again: Scientists at the Human Genome Project now say that their counterparts at Celera Genomics Corp. relied so heavily on the Genome Project's data that Celera hasn't proved that its own approach to mapping human genes would ever have worked. Celera's scientists reject the charge. Still to be located in the ongoing research: the ego gene. * Turning now to sports: Plans may be on hold to bring the Mike Tyson vs. Lennox Lewis heavyweight-title bout to Washington, but D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams says he's still committed to finding ways to attract tourist dollars to the District. Among the things he's considering: weekly hangings, short-track striptease, and Christians being fed to lions. * And finally, Austrian Olympic officials continued to deny today that blood-transfusion equipment discovered in a Utah home rented by Austrian Nordic skiers was evidence of illegal blood doping by the athletes. Explained a team official, "Everyone knows what great kidders they are!" That's the news. When there's more, we'll tell you. Posted 3/5/02. Tell
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Rick Horowitz
