Healing laughter.

• Author: Ivins, Molly
• Position: Small favors - Column

I'm sorry, but every now and again a girl just finds it necessary to lay her head down on the table and howl with laughter. I wrote a column warning that USA Next, a Republican astroturf (meaning "fake grassroots") group was going to attack the AARP. The senior citizens' lobby does not support the privatization of Social Security, and so clearly incurs the wrath of all God-fearing, true-believing, highly paid Republican public relations firms. But I have to confess, even I did not see this one coming.

USA Next's first salvo was to accuse the geezer lobby of being against our troops in Iraq and in favor of homosexual marriage.

A charming Internet ad showed a muscular hero of the desert in combat fatigues with a big X across his picture, and on the other side are two guys in tuxedos getting hitched with a big check across their picture. Under these two pictures it says, "The REAL AARP Agenda." I haven't laughed so hard since President Bush informed us that we have had a close and enduring friendship with Japan for the past 150 years.

Yes, our old friends from the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth--the very people who told you that John Kerry didn't deserve his medals from Vietnam, who said he testified before Congress that American soldiers were all war criminals--are back again, attacking the AARP, a group largely known for advocating afternoon naps for the elderly.

Disclosure: I once wrote an article for the AARP magazine Modern Maturity, and not only did they pay well, but got the jokes too. Despite this happy one-time experience, I am not an AARP fan. I consider their support of the abomination that is the Medicare prescription drug coverage bill the most ill-advised sellout since the memorably awful 1996 telecommunications deregulation bill. (Enjoying that one, everyone? Your bills gone down lately?)

USA Next has the same address as O'Neill Marketing, although Charlie Jarvis, head of Next, says he's three floors down. O'Neill is a list company, it sells lists of names, and its clients are various branches of the Republican Party. So subtle. Hi, Karl.

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