Headcase - Two hoaxes

Looking for more of the same? Forget Obama and McCain. Vote for Matthew Whitton for president.

Whitton was a Clayton County police officer until last week, when he was fired by police Chief Jeffrey Turner, who told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution this:

“He’s disgraced himself, he’s an embarrassment to the Clayton County Police Department, his credibility and integrity as an officer is gone, and I have no use for him. His behavior is unbecoming of that of a police officer.

“The turn of events from hero to someone who defrauds a nation,” Turner continued, “is just baffling. I don’t know how he got from one point to the other.”

A loss of credibility and integrity? Behavior unbecoming his office? A hero who ended up defrauding the nation? Sound familiar?

Those words perfectly describe George Bush. Unlike Bush, however, Whitton lost his job.

Whitton and his pal Rick Dyer own a business called Bigfoot Tracker. During a hike in the North Georgia mountains, they claimed to have stumbled upon the carcass of a Sasquatch, the legendary creatures that are half-ape and half-man. The two claimed to have toted the 7-foot-tall creature to a freezer. They also claimed to have photos and video of living Sasquatches.

You will recall that George Bush, who himself warned us about “human-animal hybrids,” claimed to have proof that the Iraqis were harboring weapons of mass destruction. He also repeatedly implied that Iraqis helped pull off the 9/11 attack. The weapons were so deadly, Bush assured us, that we must invade immediately.

Soon after their announcement that they had a Bigfoot carcass, Whitton and Dyer were pummeled by skeptics. The story spread like wildfire on the Internet. The Bigfoot trackers even produced YouTube videos that countered the claims of disbelievers. The videos are hilarious. Whitton deadpans his way through them. An eminent scientist, Dr. Van Buren, shows up to study the carcass and corroborate that it’s a genuine Sasquatch.

Any person of average IQ would immediately discern that the videos were part of a hoax.

The same was true with George Bush’s claims about the need to invade Iraq. He dispatched Colin Powell to the U.N. to recite a litany of obviously concocted “evidence.” Meanwhile, Condoleezza Rice warned us that if we didn’t invade, we might be seeing a nuclear cloud. Reporters and pundits joined in the hysteria.

Whitton and Dyer found their own surrogate in Tom Biscardi, the nation’s foremost Bigfoot chaser. He bought the rights to their story for an undisclosed sum and invited them to a press conference in Palo Alto, Calif., two weeks ago. Before then, a DNA sample of the frozen Bigfoot was sent out for analysis. It turned out to include DNA from a human and an opossum.

By that point, Biscardi and the media were so swept up by the story that nobody really questioned the DNA evidence. Biscardi claimed that the creature had probably lunched on a ‘possum before he died.

You’ll recall that even though inspectors declared Iraq free of weapons – and even though many Middle East specialists said it was absurd to connect Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda – the Bush administration pushed ahead by creating its own propaganda office at the Pentagon to “correct” CIA intelligence. There was even a forged memo documenting Iraq’s effort to buy materials to construct nuclear weapons.

Despite all the fakery, the press conference in Palo Alto was packed with reporters. Whitton, Dyer and Biscardi gave a flawless performance, mixing humor with absurdity. The entire world was spellbound, just as they were by George Bush’s heroics during the days following 9/11.

But then it all fell apart. The block of ice that contained Bigfoot’s carcass melted to reveal nothing but an ape costume. A series of books have revealed the extensive lies of George Bush and his administration. Whitton and Dyer are in hiding somewhere. People are angrily demanding they be brought to justice. Meanwhile, George Bush, whose lies cost thousands of lives, sits in the White House, free of consequences.

Cliff Bostock holds a Ph.D. in depth psychology. For his blog and information on his private practice, go to www.cliffbostock.com.