By Salvador Astucia, May 23, 2002

Two words: "Dead bimbo!" So what’s all the fuss? Some young chick had an adulterous affair with a congressman and ends up dead. Given her obvious lack of morality, she could have been having sexual liaisons with dozens of men. Any of them could have had her whacked. Why all the fuss about Gary Condit? What’s the motive? His wife is fairly attractive and he had a cute young babe on the side. Even better, the wife didn’t seem to mind hubby playing the field. Seems like paradise to me. Why ruin a good thing by whacking poor Chandra?

Even more peculiar, the press is jumping all over this story. Yesterday we were being told by our fearless leaders that life in Western civilization as we know it will soon come to an end. This ominous forecast was coming from people in high places indeed—Vice President Richard Cheney, FBI Director Robert Mueller, Senators Bob Graham and Richard Shelby (chairman and ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, respectively), and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. At some point yesterday, the news media even hinted that President Bush too had predicted the world would cease to exist and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it. Our collective fate was in the hands of a skinny little man dressed in sheets who lives in a cave in Afghanistan and he could not be stopped by the CIA, the FBI, or the entire US military. Wow. I was shaking in my shoes.

But suddenly things changed. For some reason, there was a shift in media attention. Yesterday, the DC cops found the "remains" of long lost Jewish bimbo Chandra Levy. Suddenly nothing else matters anymore. Who cares if New York City is going to be blown off the map by a bunch of crazed foreign cave dwellers—Chandra’s bones have been discovered. That’s more important. The Washington Post dropped their coverage of New York possibly being blasted to smithereens because they had bigger fish to fry. At the Post, ten journalists were tasked to write one story about Chandra’s untimely demise. No kidding. On the front page of today’s Washington Post, there’s a story entitled Chandra Levy's Remains Found in Park. It was written by Steve Twomey and Sari Horwitz with assistance from Petula Dvorak, David A. Fahrenthold, Marc Fisher, Allan Lengel, Arthur Santana, Debbi Wilgoren, Clarence Williams, and Metro researcher Bobbye Pratt. Can you believe it? Ten people! How much writing skill and research is required to state that (a) Chandra’s bones were found, (b) a jogger's dog sniffed them out, (c) the bones were badly decomposed, (d) she appears to be dead, and (e) Gary Condit is in deep doo-doo. In addition, the teeth matched dental records provided by Chandra’s parents, so we know for sure that it’s Chandra. And being a nice Jewish family who raised an adulterous young harlot, we know those dental records must be authentic. It’s unfortunate that a little thing like the Kol Nidre has tainted so many good people like the Levys and Larry King just to name a few. Oh well, at least we’re getting a break from 911 and the War on Terrorism. ª