John Montgomery  Presents This Week's Creep Logo by Lynn Kauczka

The Anthrax Hacks Making People Afraid and Our Leaders Stupid

It's one thing to avoid being killed by hijacked planes flying into famous buildings in big cities. You can decide not to fly. You can keep out of famous buildings. You can stay away from big cities. But you can't stop breathing. This anthrax business is insidious and pretty damn scary in a way the 911 attacks were not. If someone was looking to instill blind panic on the streets, and gross incompetence in the government, he couldn't have come up with a better method.

First it was American Media in Boca Raton Florida, where tabloids The Sun and The Globe are published. Robert Stevens, a photo editor there, died of "anthrax disease", the first American to do so since the 1970s. US Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson became the first member of Bush's cabinet (but surely not the last) to prove himself completely lacking in even the most basic abilities required for his job by stating at a press conference and later before Congress that the case was isolated and caused by bad drinking water. "We do know that he drank water out of a stream when he was traveling through North Carolina last week," said Tommy, calming everyone except the North Carolina tourist industry.

Of course, Tommy jumped the gun a bit. In quick succession, letters containing anthrax were sent to the bastions of the media (New York Times, NBC, ABC, CBS) and Congress (Democratic Senators Tom Daschle and Russ Feingold). For some strange reason, nobody sent any anthrax to Fox TV News or Senator Trent Lott. Naturally, it wasn't the celebrities who actually got exposed to the anthrax. Instead, it was the lowly mail room employees and congressional aids who had to spend hours in line to get cotton swabs stuck up their noses.

Never fear, however, our law enforcement agencies are hot on the trail of the perpetrators. Attorney General John Ashcroft scheduled a news conference to report an important arrest in the anthrax cases. Hurray for John! Who was it? Some rich Arab with an anthrax lab in his 4-car garage? A right wing zealot with a bug up his ass about the left-leaning media and liberal politicians? Surely you jest. John's big announcement was the apprehension of Joseph Faryniarz, of the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection, who was charged with taking part in an anthrax hoax at work.

Uh, John? While I appreciate you cleaning up the streets of ridiculously stupid slugs like Joseph, maybe you should spend some time looking for the guys who are sending the real anthrax. Just a suggestion.

Meanwhile, our elected leaders in Congress are looking positively schizophrenic. The Senate, run by Democrats, said, "We will not let this stop the work of the Senate." The House, run by Republicans, said, "Emergency! Let's get the hell out of here!" There were pissing contests about who got sent the purest quality anthrax and whether the Capital building ventilation system had been infected. Business as usual on Capital Hill.

And when was the last time you heard anything from the Prez or the VP about this? Dick Cheney keeps running around between secret hideaways like some spastic refugee from the witness protection program. As for our Commander-In-Chief, after yet another directive that we Americans should get on with our normal daily activities (like putting on gas masks to open the mail), George took off for a meeting in China.

China? Wasn't it only last spring that we were ready to kick their devious yellow asses over that spy plane collision incident? The good old days.