Mullings: An American Cyber-column By Rich Galen

�

Click here for the Secret Decoder Ring to this issue!

Become a
Paid Mullings Subscriber!

(To join the FREE mailing list or to unsubscribe Click Here)

Ranger Rick Goes to Washington

Wednesday June 16, 2004

Click here for an Easy Print Version

The important Subscription Drives are on because MULLINGS needs your help! Click here for all the details.

Here's what happens when you get something with the word "SUBPOENA" across the top: You read the rest of it.

Ranger Rick got such a piece of paper recently which "commanded" him to appear before a Congressional Committee and a date certain to discuss this and that about Iraq.

The Committee was the Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations which is chaired by Mullfave Congressman Chris Shays of Connecticut. The day was yesterday.

Something you should know about Rep. Shays: He has been to Iraq five times. Three of those times he has gone as a private citizen, which is to say he has traveled in regular cars with regular people as opposed to traveling with about 50 military personnel in armored vehicles, at least two of which have machine guns mounted on them.

When you are commanded to appear at a Congressional Hearing you have to prepare your testimony and submit it two working days in advance of the hearing. As this hearing was on a Tuesday, RR was supposed to have had his testimony in last Friday.

Fat chance.

He got it in Monday morning. Then he got the revised version in yesterday morning. You can read the official testimony here.

Another thing you have to do is to bring 100 copies of your testimony with you. The other people testifying were from the Pentagon and from USAID and from the Department of State and who knows where-all, so they had people actually do the copying for them.

They came with large binders marked with tabs. A State Department guy came with a binder which had tabs running from A to O. A three-star General came with a binder that was so big it had tabs running from A to Z and then from 1 - 14. Forty tabs.

Ranger Rick doesn't know forty tabs worth of stuff. Total. About everything in the world.

Here's what Ranger Rick did know: While those people had been thumbing through their tabbed notebooks so they could sound smart, and the 100 copies of their testimony were being prepared by others, he had been standing at Kinko's going, "fifty seven � fifty eight � fifty nine."

Ranger Rick's staff isn't all that big.

There were three groups of people who were to testify. RR was in group three and, therefore, was supposed to sit quietly for several hours waiting for his turn.

At one point RR decided to chat with his friend Ambassador Ron Schlicher about whom he had written in one of the Iraq Travelogues after he and Ambassador Dick Jones had gone to Fallujah to try and negotiate for peace during the worst of the chaos there:

These two men went to Fallujah the other afternoon to negotiate for a peaceful end to the violence. They spent three days and two nights in the belly of the beast. They didn't solve it, but they bought everyone some much-needed time to cool down.
Jones and Schlicher didn't go to Fallujah in morning suits and bowler hats. They went in body armor and Kevlar helmets. It was, perhaps, the bravest single act I have personally witnessed since I have been here.

Ranger Rick was showing Amb Schlicher an article from yesterday's Wall Street Journal which required a very sophisticated technique to fold the newspaper. He got this note from the staff director, Larry Halloran who USED to be Ranger Rick's friend:

"Are you going to jingle cow bells and open a large bag of Fritos, too? Shhhh!"

Here is the final graf of RR's testimony:

"In just 15 days from today - some 14 months after the fall of Saddam - we will returning sovereignty to the Iraqi people.
"We should take justifiable pride in that accomplishment and have an optimistic outlook on what the ripples and echoes of that accomplishment will mean to the future of the region."

On the Secret Decoder Ring today: the etymology of the word "subpoena;" a Mullphoto of Ranger Rick in action during the hearing; and a cute Catchy Caption of the Day.

Current Issue | Secret Decoder Ring | Past Issues | Email Rich | Rich Who?