QUAIL WHO WAS CHENEY'S INTENDED TARGET IS ARRESTED FOLLOWING APPEARANCE ON LARRY KING SHOW, SUSPECTED OF BEING AL-QAEDA OPERATIVEWASHINGTON - In an effort to prevent future tragic hunting accidents similar to the one involving Vice President Dick Cheney and seventy-eight year old Texas lawyer Harry Whittington last Saturday, President Bush announced last night that his administration has ordered the Air Force to commence saturation bombing of suspected quail sanctuaries throughout the American southwest. "We've got to flush them out before they can inflict any additional damage," said the President.
Flanked by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the Executive Board of the Audubon Society, Bush also revealed that the quail that Cheney targeted when he misfired on Harry Whittington, who identifies himself as "Skippy the Quail," was in Federal custody after being arrested last night leaving CNN's Washington studios following an appearance on the Larry King Show. Skippy and King were walking to their cars in the parking lot when Skippy was nabbed, but King didn't realize what was happening because he was rehearsing aloud for tomorrow night's show, "Phoenix, go ahead, what's your question? San Diego, go ahead, what's your question?"
The President announced that "Skippy is being held at an undisclosed location for questioning, because we have firm evidence that he is an al-Qaeda operative." In addition, Mr. Bush revealed that thousands of other quails were rounded up yesterday across America "for questioning" in connection with the war on quails. Bush refused to respond to allegations that the government was engaging in impermissible ornithological profiling by targeting quails but not other birds. "It is vitally important to the security and stability of our nation that we take appropriate action to break up these terrorist coveys operating in our midst," the President said. "Our intelligence shows that some of these birds very likely possess beaks of mass destruction."
Bush also refused to discuss reports that government agents have tortured quails in custody by threatening to deep-fry them and, in one instance, by wearing a Colonel Harland Sanders costume to terrify and humilate them. Bush did disclose, however, that since the accident, members of the NSA, working in concert with the Fish and Game Commission, have begun monitoring the movements of all game birds throughout the United States. Bush asserted that the Federal Ornithological Surveillance Act of 1977, FOSA, gives the Federal Government the right to listen in on bird calls without having to obtain court approval.
Before he was taken into custody last night, Skippy the Quail revealed on The Larry King Show that he was within eight feet of the Vice President when the Vice President misfired, and that he could smell alcohol on Cheney's breath. "If he's sober," the bird told King, "there's no f - - - - - - way he misses me." White House Press Secretary Scott McClelland dismissed Skippy's account as a fabrication. "As he is wont to do, Larry King lobbed softballs at Skippy; is it any wonder Skippy hit them out of the park?" he said.
