Hey Folks –

They’re saying we have a constitutional crisis, a confrontation, a Nixonian question of “Executive Privilege.” The Congress wants Bush’s people to testify before their committees under oath. The Boy President says he’ll let them speak in private and with no transcript and NOT under oath.

The President’s plan won’t accomplish anything – unless you think Rove, Gonzales, & Co. are truthful little boy scouts. The Congressional plan would spill Bush’s Half-Baked Beans; so, forget that. Unless a compromise is reached, it looks like the matter will go to court, postponing a reckoning for quite some time. No likely solution has presented itself.

Until now.

Folks, the ol’ Uke Man has the sword to cut the Gordian Knot:

Congress should immediately agree to allow testimony from the President’s helpers without their being sworn in, knowing full well from the start that they can then say anything they want without the threat of facing perjury charges.

The Congress should further agree to keep no record beyond what notes individual congressmen can manage to jot down.

Thus, the President’s demands are met.

For his part, the President need only agree that those who are called to testify may be "tortured."

Well, not exactly tortured; just made subject to those techniques recently employed by CIA and military interrogators (e.g. “water boarding” and “sleep deprivation”) techniques officially ruled by the Bush administration NOT to be torture but actually humane methods of seeking truth.

Obviously the President would accept these terms. He trusts his people to tell the truth – even without being sworn. He believes them to be competent, intelligent advisors who have consistently advocated wise and judicious policies. There is no way, then, that he would shrink from their being placed under the very policies they helped establish.

Yes, some Democratic congressmen might object since they are on record claiming that what they insist on calling “torture” doesn’t actually discover truth but simply elicits whatever the so-called “victim” thinks the interrogator wants to hear.

Nevertheless, while it can be argued that the testimony may be inaccurate and misleading regardless of which approach is employed, MY proposal undeniably guarantees every Democrat in the country limitless personal gratification, and that will win the day.

- Uke Man