Operation Tribute to Freedom

This is truly creepy. I mean, really.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is a busy man. Running the Department of Defense in jacked-up times. Ramrodding past Secretary of State Colin Powell a new American foreign policy, Diplomacy Through Bombsight. Reinventing the nation’s entire military structure, where he encounters resistance every step of the way from older brass. Conducting a tireless round of press conferences so lively that you scarcely miss the nominal president of the United States.

Some reporters lately have had the temerity to ask hard questions about our recent adventures, and Rumsfeld had to verbally bitch-slap them. At his age! He should be sitting back in his recliner with a whiskey sour and copy of Popular Mechanics.

But no, he’s busier yet! The same flair for micromanaging and knowing what’s best for those in uniform is now being shared with the rest of us, here in Everytown, USA. His staffers have been phoning city officials, including some in Orange County, and strongly urging them to structure Fourth of July celebrations around the war in Iraq.

"I got the impression that they had a list of every city in the nation that had applied for a pyrotechnics permit, and were calling them to persuade them to be part of the program," said one OC city official.