May 6, 2004

TIMES HUMOR: BOROWITZ REPORT

Bush: ‘Mission Accomplished’ was typo

Banner Should Have Read ‘Still Difficult Work Ahead’

One year after President George W. Bush landed on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln to celebrate the end of the major combat phase in Iraq, Mr. Bush used his weekly radio address to say that the “Mission Accomplished” banner onboard the carrier was the result of “a typo.”

“That banner was not supposed to say ‘Mission Accomplished,’” Mr. Bush said. “It was supposed to say ‘Still Difficult Work Ahead.’”

Mr. Bush said that he did not notice the typo at the time, and only caught it one year later while watching a news report marking the anniversary.

But the President surprised many observers by refusing to apologize for the typo, instead calling it the work of “evildoers.”

Adopting a stern and resolute tone, Mr. Bush warned, “The person or persons responsible for this and other typos will be brought to justice.”

Privately, Mr. Bush’s aides hoped that his explanation of the erroneous banner would blunt growing criticism that the White House had failed to catch crucial typos planted by terrorists despite persistent warnings that such typos were in the works.

In particular, during the 9/11 commission’s interrogation of national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Dr. Rice admitted that Mr. Bush received a President’s Daily Brief or PDB dated Sept. 4, 2001 entitled, “Bin Laden Determined to Sneak Typos into Banners Onboard Aircraft Carriers.”

At the conclusion of his radio address, the President also tried to put to rest the lingering controversy about his military status during the Vietnam War, telling his radio audience, “Go ahead and look at my Vietnam war record—you won’t find anything.”

For more go to: www.borowitzreport.com

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