Dance of the Reptiles

by Carl Hiaasen

  The truth is, I did find Yemen on Google Earth. It was Bahrain that gave me fits.

  Don’t get me wrong. I know I’d be a fantastic president, just like I’m a fantastic billionaire reality-show host.

  Before the bloggers start in, let me set the record straight. My choice not to run for the highest office in the land has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the job pays only $400,000 a year, which is, frankly, a joke.

  When Donald Jr. told me what the president’s salary was, I gotta admit, I thought he’d been spending a little too much time on Willie Nelson’s bus.

  [Pause for audience laughter.]

  Just kidding. Willie’s a close personal friend.

  But seriously, can you believe that the most powerful guy in the free world gets paid a lousy 400 grand a year? The batboy for the freaking Yankees makes more than that!

  I understand that by bowing out of the presidential race, I’m disappointing billions and billions of Americans who’d been counting on me to save the country. Two of them are sitting in this boardroom tonight. Meat Loaf, what can I say? I know I promised that you could be Secretary of Defense in the first Trump administration. And Lil Jon, you were my first choice to replace Bernanke at the Federal Reserve.

  Gentlemen, you’re both fantastic patriots and close personal friends of mine.

  Be patient. Your time will come.

  Meanwhile, to all the fans who’ve cheered for me on this brief but overhyped journey, all that’s left to say is: I’m almost humbled.

  God bless me, and God bless America. Good night.

  [Remain seated for thunderous applause.]

  June 4, 2011

  Here’s the Lowdown on “Weinergate”

  Now comes before us in indignation one Rep. Anthony D. Weiner, Democrat from New York, who, through Twitter, launched an unseemly photograph to a female college student in Seattle.

  Weiner, a feisty liberal who hopes to become mayor of New York, is an avid user of social networks on which he dispenses quips and commentary. He says he’s the victim of a hacker who sent out a “gag photo” of a man sporting a suggestive bulge in his underwear. In the lofty vernacular of our times, this is called a crotch shot, also known as a Favre.

  Weiner vigorously denies tweeting the waist-down picture and says he has never met or spoken with the young woman who received it. The woman says the same thing. Yet “Weinergate,” as the bloggers have tagged the scandal, refuses to go away. Here’s why: When asked about it last week, the congressman stated that he couldn’t say “with certainty” whether or not it was his crotch in the picture.

  This raises, so to speak, a couple of possible scenarios. Perhaps Weiner is photographed so often from the waist down that he can’t recall all the different pictures. Or perhaps the snapshot in question was taken from an angle that makes it difficult for him to identify himself in bedroom lighting.

  For whatever reason, the congressman isn’t sure if it’s him in the wayward tweet. Most folks caught in the same predicament would know at a glance. Unless you’re a Calvin Klein model, a porn actor, or a rock star, you can probably count on one hand the number of times somebody aimed a camera point-blank at your groin.

  Back in 1971, the Rolling Stones released a classic album called Sticky Fingers. The jacket art, conceived by Andy Warhol, was a pair of jeans with a zipper that really unzipped, revealing a photograph of a male torso in tight white briefs.

  The rumor was that the man posing for that photo was Mick Jagger, the band’s lead singer. That wasn’t true, but nonetheless, many album covers were ripped open on the shelves of record stores by young female fans who lusted for a peek.

  It’s safe to say that a different sort of frenzy has been stirred by the alleged crotch shot of Congressman Weiner. In an interview with CBS News, the most he would say is “The photograph does not look familiar to me.”

  Not exactly a blistering denial.

  In a stab at humor, he also alluded to his friend Jon Stewart’s joke that the tweeted picture featured such a robust weiner that it couldn’t belong to Weiner.

  As this is being written, the congressman still hasn’t settled the debate over whether or not it’s him in his skivvies. Obviously, there’s no law against photographing yourself in underwear or having a friend do it. For a public figure, however, the dumb thing is to send out such an image electronically, or to leave it in a computer file that could be hacked. Yet brainless indiscretion does seem to be trending.

  In February, another New York congressman, Rep. Chris Lee, resigned after it was revealed that he had e-mailed a suggestive photo of himself to a woman he’d contacted on Craigslist. In his creepy self-portrait, the married Republican lawmaker was posing shirtless and flexing his muscles.

  Most infamously, NFL superstar Brett Favre got in trouble for sending inappropriate texts and voice mails to a woman who worked for the New York Jets while Favre was the team’s quarterback. Included in his Neanderthal seduction efforts was a graphic picture he’d taken of his locker-room pride and joy, a gesture that failed to impress the young lady and also was likely not a big hit with Mrs. Favre.

  It’s common for men to behave like knuckle-dragging morons, but cyber-technology is presenting new opportunities for self-humiliation and disgrace. Tiger Woods, who had no qualms about sending raunchy texts to the women he was boinking, was unaccountably flabbergasted, stunned to learn that some had archived these messages and shared them with others.

  Rep. Weiner was known as a popular bachelor until last year, when he married a longtime aide to Hillary Clinton. It’s possible that the disputed close-up was taken by Weiner himself, or a past girlfriend, or even his wife. Or maybe it’s not even his personal junk in the photo, which would leave the mystery of how it got posted on his account with yfrog, an image service affiliated with Twitter.

  If the congressman is being truthful when he says he didn’t send the picture, the story is worthwhile only as a lesson to all prominent persons who occasionally get stupid with their smartphones.

  Spare us, please, from your homemade crotch shots.

  The delete button is your friend.

  July 9, 2011

  Casey-Mania and the Talking Heads

  A true headline among the flurry of stories posted on Yahoo! following the Casey Anthony verdict: “Kim Kardashian Weighs In.”

  It’s fairly horrifying that anyone gives a rat’s ass about Kim Kardashian’s take on the Anthony case. On the other hand, she couldn’t be more clueless than some of the motormouths who landed TV gigs as “legal experts” during the trial coverage. Never have the airwaves and bandwidths of this country been so clogged with gasbags posing as seasoned courtroom veterans, or lightweight has-beens seeking to jump-start their careers.

  High on Casey-mania, cable networks such as HLN were frantic to fill airtime with talking heads, and by the end of the trial, you wondered if they were just yanking random lawyers out of the hallways and shoving them in front of the camera.

  The prevailing tenor of the coverage, embodied by Nancy Grace and others, was that Anthony was guilty as sin of killing her daughter, Caylee. This wasn’t an unreasonable view, considering Anthony’s many lies, her busy social life after Caylee’s disappearance, and the circumstantial evidence compiled by prosecutors. Despite the acquittal, there remains no plausible set of circumstances to explain Caylee’s death that would not directly and criminally involve her mother.

  So what went wrong with the jury? Nothing.

  The public’s expectations were jacked up by all the TV yakking about this dreadful crime and the train wreck of a mom accused of committing it. With some sharp exceptions, like Jeffrey Toobin of CNN, most of the “legal experts” continued shooting from the lip, feeding the hype.

  But here’s what smart trial lawyers knew from the beginning: Proving Anthony guilty of first-degree murder would be very difficult.

  In the shell-shocked outcry last week after the verdict was announced, many were comparing the surpr
ise outcome to that of the O. J. Simpson murder trial. The truth is, the Simpson prosecutors had much more evidence to work with, a veritable gold mine. They had a cause of death. They had a time of death. They had blood evidence, DNA, gloves, and footprints. They had two intact bodies and an actual crime scene. And still they lost the case.

  Because it took so long to find Caylee’s remains, Anthony’s prosecutors couldn’t tell the jury where, when, or how she had died. Duct tape on the skull, chloroform residue in a car trunk—that’s enough for a theory, but it’s not a smoking gun. Then there was the question of motive. For any experienced homicide detective, the Simpson crime scene had jealous ex-husband written all over it. But in the Anthony trial, jurors were asked to believe that this woman murdered her daughter simply so she could go out partying with her peeps. Sicker things have happened, but it’s a tough sell without credible witnesses who heard Casey say she wanted her daughter dead.

  Given what they had to work with, prosecutors did a solid job. Obviously, so did Jose Baez, the much maligned lead defense lawyer for Anthony. It’s funny to see the so-called experts backpedaling in their estimation of both sides now that the case is over.

  Shortly before the verdict came down, one row of TV legal eagles sat there predicting that the prosecution would be helped by the fact that most of the jurors were women, and women would be tougher on Anthony because of the nature of the crime.

  So much for that bit of wisdom.

  Watching a trial on television isn’t the same as watching it from the jury box, where there’s no background commentary or dramatic theme music during the breaks. However, smart lawyers and judges will tell you that a different jury could have just as easily convicted Anthony, just as a different jury could have convicted Simpson. That’s how it goes.

  What happens next is more predictable: Casey Anthony enters the low realm of celebrity. She’ll get a ghostwriter and do a bestselling book and possibly have her own reality show. On the advice of her attorneys, she will either find Jesus or volunteer to work with abused kids. She will be strongly counseled not to start dating Alex Rodriguez or Charlie Sheen.

  And at some point, she’ll sit down with Diane Sawyer or Oprah, and we’ll get to hear a brand-new version of poor Caylee’s death.

  Millions and millions of people will watch the interview, after which a group of big-haired experts will tell us what it all means. Don’t be shocked to see a Kardashian on the panel.

  PARTY WITH THE FRINGE ON TOP

  August 24, 2003

  Fringe Embraces “Martyr”

  The man who did more damage to the anti-abortion cause than anybody in history is at peace with himself. Paul Hill, sitting on Florida’s Death Row, says he’s glad that he murdered an abortion doctor and would do it again.

  Fortunately, he’ll never get the chance. He’s scheduled to die on September 3.

  Opponents of capital punishment are asking Gov. Jeb Bush to halt the execution because it could make Hill a martyr to pro-life extremists.

  Crackpot websites are hailing him as a patriot and a hero and warn that his death will bring bloodshed to other abortion providers, judges, and politicians. Last week, single rifle bullets were anonymously sent to prison officials, Attorney General Charlie Crist, and the judge who sentenced Hill.

  Here’s what brave Mr. Hill did to earn his martyrdom: On July 29, 1994, he carried a loaded shotgun to the Pensacola Ladies Center and blasted Dr. John Britton; his driver, retired Air Force Lt. Col. James Barrett; and Barrett’s wife, June. Barrett, 74, and Britton, 69, died.

  If mowing down senior citizens with a 12-gauge doesn’t seem especially courageous or noble, remember that Hill was only following God’s orders. That’s what he said, anyway.

  At trial, the former Presbyterian minister sought to portray his actions as justifiable homicide committed on behalf of the helpless unborn. The judge nixed that defense, noting that the operations performed by Dr. Britton were legal.

  A Panhandle jury wasted no time convicting Hill, and mainstream anti-abortion groups wasted no time renouncing his crimes. Still, the assassination was a nightmare for a political movement that has claimed as its moral cornerstone a reverence for human life. The overwhelming majority of Americans who oppose abortion take a similar view of murder, and a homicidal fanatic like Hill is the worst possible poster boy for their cause.

  Not surprisingly, the freak fringe has embraced him. “God’s prophet,” enthused one Maryland preacher, while an anti-abortion newsletter called Hill “an authentic Christian martyr, whose death proves the government of the United States has been enslaved by the forces of Satan.”

  If these drool-flecked screeds sound familiar, it’s because the news these days is full of instant martyrs. You hear the same righteous pseudo-religious tripe about the suicide bombers in Israel and Baghdad; about the dead Hussein brothers; about the 19 creeps who hijacked those jetliners on September 11, 2001.

  You’ll hear more if and when Osama bin Laden ever gets whacked—remember, he’s only trying to save the Islamic world from us wicked Western devils. Like Hill, all wannabe martyrs claim to be true believers. And they all try to justify their cowardly deeds with selected quotes from holy books—the first refuge of hypocrites and the oldest alibi for slaughter.

  In a letter to the Herald, Hill wrote, “Yes, the Lord is giving me a generous measure of peace and joy as I anticipate my departure. My confidence is not in anything that I have done, but in the righteous life and the substitutionary death of Christ on the cross.”

  Even as he plays the Jesus card, Hill concedes that “only a relatively small number of people” have voiced support for the Britton murder. Gee, what a surprise. Predictably, Hill’s sparse following has found a nest on the Internet, where the dumb notion of mailing bullets to public officials first caught on. Evidently, some rare editions of the Bible now include The Book of Remington.

  In one online diatribe, an anti-abortion activist even compared Jeb Bush to Pontius Pilate. At least one death message has been sent to the governor, who told the Herald: “I get threatened all of the time. The execution goes on as planned.”

  Ironically, Bush is a longtime opponent of abortion. He’s also a supporter of capital punishment. Being simultaneously pro-life and pro-death isn’t easy to explain, but plenty of conservatives—including the governor’s older brother—take that position.

  In Hill’s case, the law is unambiguous about punishment. Bush would set a reckless precedent by sparing a cold-blooded killer out of sympathy for a cause, or out of fear that his execution might instigate more shootings. If, as Hill’s supporters predict, his death touches off a new “torrent” of violence against abortion providers, the pro-life movement might never recover from the backlash. On both sides of both issues (abortion and capital punishment) there are lots of decent, thoughtful people who don’t feel the need to shoot somebody to advance a viewpoint.

  Paul Hill is no better than any common terrorist, pious, unrepentant, and blind to his own hypocrisy. The guilt-free inner serenity that he claims to enjoy is precisely what you’d expect from a malfunctioning moral compass.

  Note: Paul Hill was executed by lethal injection on Sept. 3, 2003.

  October 8, 2006

  Foley Contrite, but Only After He Got Caught

  New rule for all members of Congress: Keep your hands where we can see ’em.

  In a dubious feat of multitasking, then-Rep. Mark Foley engaged in online sex with a former congressional page in April 2003 while Foley was on the floor of the House of Representatives, preparing to vote on an appropriations bill for Iraq.

  Afterward, Foley asked for a “good kiss good night,” and suggested that the boy visit him over the Veteran’s Day weekend. “We may need to drink at my house so we don’t get busted,” Foley chirped.

  Now unmasked and disgraced, Foley has rabbited off to rehab, where he is said to be remorseful, shattered, etc. Meanwhile, his lawyer spins a woeful tale of an unnamed clergyman who supposedl
y abused Foley in his youth. Whatever. It’s not as if the West Palm Beach Republican voluntarily marched forward and confessed to making lewd passes at high school boys. He got contrite only after he got caught.

  Even if Foley really has an alcohol problem, which would be news to many of his friends, it doesn’t alter the unforgivable fact that he used his position as a congressman to troll for teenage sex partners. A congressman who bragged about his high marks from the Christian Coalition and American Conservative Union, a congressman who co-chaired the caucus on missing and exploited children, railing against Internet pedophiles … Perfect cover for the secret Foley, who was sending out electronic messages asking, among other things, for a young male page to provide the measurements of his penis.

  That’s not a drunk talking. That’s a predator.

  Foley has disappeared into Detox Mansion, but no such refuge is available to the Republican House leadership. With each day’s tawdry headlines, Speaker Dennis Hastert struggles to appear suitably shocked and disgusted, while clinging to his job like a bear up a tree. His credibility is zero, his memory worse than Condoleezza Rice’s. Kirk Fordham, Foley’s ex–chief of staff, says he warned the speaker’s office three years ago that Foley was getting too chummy with the pages.

  Hastert denies it. Three other top Republican lawmakers say they told him last spring about a troubling Foley e-mail. Hastert says his colleagues spoke not with him but with his staff and that nobody passed the information along to him. Either the speaker’s lying or his staff is full of chowderheads.

  The incident involved a 16-year-old page from Louisiana who was disturbed by chatty online messages from Foley that included a request for the boy’s photo. “Sick … sick … sick … sick,” the teen had typed in response. “Overly friendly” was how the congressman later described it.

  You know—like when your neighbor’s poodle gets overly friendly with your leg.