Bush Buys a Round.

• Author: Clinton, Kate
• Position: Tax rebate humor - Brief Article

The first week in July, replaced the vacationing Dick Cavett as narrator for the Broadway run of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. My old high school teaching skills came right back, since it was my job to ride herd on a raucously interactive audience that had grown up on midnight art house showings of the movie.

Parents brought their kids to the theater and, on ancient ritualized cues, yelled out the most scabrous things at me and the cast. Their children sat gape-mouthed at their parental units spewing forbidden obscenities. Brad: "Asshole!" Janet: "Slut!"

In an uptight First World, it was wonderfully, riotously transgressive. I encourage people to continue the tradition and give a shout whenever they hear the names of George or Dick or Rummy or any of the other horrors ranged before us.

During all of July, I breathlessly awaited the debut of the "new" CNN, which stood for Condit Nookie News. Its latest motto: "We're doing things different!" Forgoing adverbs? Muzzling Tucker (asshole!) Carlson? It wouldn't have hurt the network to do some actual investigative journalism to honor the memory of Katharine Graham by finding out what really happened to J. H. Hatfield. He was the author of Fortunate Son, the Bush expose conveniently squelched just before the election. Hatfield, forty-three, died of an apparent suicide, or so we were told.

Just as the corn was getting high as a GOP elephant's eye, I began celebrating the imminent arrival of my tax rebate check by doing voluntary rolling blackouts with Jenna and Barbara. Whoopee!

The tax rebate is a lot like Bush (I can't hear you!) down in some rough and tumbleweed Texas watering hole, buying a round of drinks for everyone.

It cost the IRS thirty million bucks to send out notices with that old punchline "the check is in the mail." As it turns out, the kickbacks are not for everyone. They are part of the Voodoo White House tax-relief-for-two-heterosexuals package, even though the Census showed that there are more NASCAR than nuclear families.

I loathe those who cavalierly say that $300 will buy them a moderately priced dinner in the Hamptons. Three hundred dollars is a hugely needed cash influx...