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Jewish World Review March 5, 2002 / 21 Adar, 5762

Andy Borowitz

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Consumer Reports

Pentagon, shutting down lying office, will shift lie-telling duties to other government agencies



FAA, IRS Expected to Pick Up The Slack In Fib Production

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | THE Pentagon announced that it was shuttering its controversial Office of Strategic Influence - whose duties included spreading lies at home and abroad - and that the job of creating and disseminating lies would shift to other government agencies instead.

The main responsibility for telling and disseminating big fat lies was expected to fall upon the FAA and the IRS, the Pentagon said.

Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said that these agencies were chosen because they were uniquely equipped for the challenges of global mendacity.

"These agencies have been telling whoppers, on a regular basis, for years," Rumsfeld told reporters in Washington. "For them, these new responsibilities should be as easy as falling off a log."

Some agency bureaucrats, however, expressed concern that their lying workload was already too heavy and that the Pentagon's latest decision could wind up putting too great a strain on the agencies' capacity for dishonesty.

"We're in the middle of audit season, which means that we're threatening, harassing, and shaking down taxpayers day in, day out," said one bureaucrat for the IRS. "Quite frankly, we're already lying as much as we can."

A bureaucrat from the FAA echoed those sentiments.

"It's all we can do just to make up phony reports and stuff to cover up all of our aviation safety lapses," the bureaucrat said. "I don't know where all of these new lies are supposed to come from."

Critics of the Pentagon decision said that the nation could very well be looking at a serious fib shortage if, as many suspect, the government does not have enough liars on the payroll to get the job done.

"This never would've happened in the Clinton administration," one critic said.



JWR Contributor Andy Borowitz, a former president of the Harvard Lampoon, is a regular humor columnist for Newsweek.com, The New Yorker, The New York Times and TV Guide. Recognized by Esquire magazine as one of the most powerful producers in television, he was the creator and producer of the hit TV series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and producer of the Oscar-nominated film Pleasantville. He is the author, most recently, of "Trillionaire Next Door: The Greedy Investor's Guide to Day Trading" and "Rationalizations to Live By". Comments by clicking here. Visit his website by clicking here.

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© 2002, Andy Borowitz