Clinton fires Linda Tripp
By PETE YOST

Jan. 19, 2001 | WASHINGTON (AP) -- Linda Tripp, whose secret tape recordings led to President Clinton's impeachment, was fired Friday by the Clinton administration after she refused to resign like other political appointees, her lawyer said.

"The termination of Linda Tripp is vindictive, mean-spirited and wrong," attorneys Stephen Kohn, David Colapinto and Michael Kohn said in a statement. "President Clinton should not have ended his presidency on such a vengeful note."

Word of Tripp's firing came as Clinton reached a deal to settle the remaining legal issues from the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Tripp, like all other political appointees, was asked in recent days by her superiors to resign her position in preparation for the change in administrations, but on the advice of her attorneys she refused to do so in a letter Thursday addressed to Clinton.

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Esteemed Editor-in-Chief:

You have no doubt already seen the above news dispatch. What you don't know yet is that the charming Ms. Linda Tripp will be coming to Chad as a Special Assistant to the U.S Ambassador, the no-less-charming Kathryn Harris. Ms. Harris told me this herself at the daily midnight briefing session that she graciously holds exclusively for me, so I may confidently report that this is a "scoop", as you western newshounds like to say.

I hope you will be able to find a color portrait of Ms. Tripp to put up on the Magellan's Log website, not only so that your readers will be able to feast their eyes on this magnificent specimen of patriotic American womanhood, but also so that I may download it to floppy disk and take it to Kinko's for two 11" x 17" laminated laser printouts thereof, one for our President Col. Bouche, and the other to grace the spartan walls of Magelln's Log's Chad bureau, next to the already installed portrait of the radiant Ms. Harris.

Ed. Note: Here you are, Nfubi. Enjoy:

Before continuing this report, allow me to clear up something about my spelling of Ms. Kathryn Harris' Christian name. You have corrected me on this more than once, as is your professional duty as an editor, and I concede that you are technically correct. But, as I have said in the past, I consider Ms. Harris to be nothing less than a deity, and my chosen religion, Govno, which is one of the 564 officially recognized faiths of Chad, has a severe prohibition against uttering the name of G_d aloud, or even putting it into writing. This sort of injunction is shared by other religions, including Judaism, and is also similar to the Judeo-Christian commandment against the making of graven images, and the Islamic prohibition against representations of the human body or face in art.

Obviously, these strictures were developed before the profession of journalism came into being, and I often find this to be most limiting in my pursuit of my reportorial duties. In this case, my solution to this difficulty is to use an alternate spelling, one that indeed I find to be more graceful and dignified that the one with which Ms. Harris' parents burdened her. This way, I am able to identify the subject clearly and unambiguously, but still obey the letter of the law of Govno. But I'm willing to be flexible here -- I can continue using Kathryn, or, if you prefer, I can refer to her as K*th*r*n*. The choice is yours, but I would like to point out that the latter involves considerable shift-key manipulation, which is not good for two-finger typists like me or even for Magellan's Log when I am on deadline.

Speaking of deadlines, have you ever seen so much breaking news coming pout of our impoverished but proud little nation in such a short time? First Ms. Harris' appointment as ambassadortrix here, then her spectacular success at remodelling the embassy, then the horrible false accusations of her involvement in the Laurent Kabila assassination, and now the imminent arrival of Linda Tripp -- all in little more than a week or so. When I worked in the Washington Times bureau here, often years would go by without half as much news and excitement!

As you know, Lurent Kabila was finally declared dead by his government, after two days of denial, and his son Joseph has taken his place. The fact that he actually died from the gunshot wounds is being taken as a definitive refutation of any possible involvement on the part of Ms. Harris. He prior employer, Florida Gov. J.E. "Jeb" Bush, has pointed out that when he took her on his hunting trips to the Okeefenokee Swamp, "she couldn't hit the side of a barn with a shotgun at ten paces, so how could she hit this reprehensible Kabila dictator, who, while admittedly a real porker, was still a lot smaller than the side of a barn?"

Additionally, Ms. Harris has flown to the side of Joseph Kabila to personally comfort him in this time of his great loss. Would someone who killed his father undertake such a selfless act of mercy? The woman is nothing less than an angel! I hope all these facts lay to rest any further gossip about Kathryn Harris' part in the slaying, so that we in Chad can get on with the important job of welcoming her and Ms. Tripp to our undeserving but grateful homeland.

On a lighter note, the downtown shops that laid in heavy supplies of cosmetics in anticipation if Ms. Harris' residency are now scrambling to double their stocks in order to be prepared for Linda Tripp. The clothing boutiques are unsure of what to do, since some have seen photos of Ms. Tripp resembling a Wagnerian Valkyrie, while other have heard of her expensive make-over and dramatic weight loss. Already there is spirited retail competition here, with plus-size stores heavily advertising "the classic Linda look," while others are promoting with no less vigor "the new petite Linda" wardrobe. Also, the electronics shops have begun hawking Linda Tripp-model tape recorders and telephone answering machines, and these are selling quite briskly. Indeed, many downtown merchants report that their sales are exceeding even those of the Christmas shopping season, all because of these two glamorous new transplants to our country and the consumer excitement they are creating. I personally cannot wait to see Ms. Tripp in the flesh, and will surely be part of the crowd that gathers at Mugabadolshi International Airport to greet the landing of this esteemed lady's air force troop carrier next week.

                                               Your faithful correspondent,
                                                Nfubi Kwaadutu