News item: "Ashcroft has denied any antipathy toward calico cats." Reference to the then Attorney General's dismissal of an urban legend circulating shortly after he ascended to the nation's top law enforcement position, as published in Vanity Fair magazine (2004). Democratic official Andrew Tobias had started the rumor that John Ashcroft believed calico kitties were Satanic in a 2001 column, claiming the information was provided him by a reliable source within the Department of Justice.

Memorandum from the Justice Department

  We are pleased to announce that the Attorney General of the United States of America bears no antipathy whatsoever towards calico cats.  He does not perceive them to be icons of the Devil. Neither does their presence evoke in him a darkening of countenance, a quickening of pulse, nor any other observable sign of distress. In summary, the Attorney General of the United States of America, regardless of any real or imagined proximity to calico cats, is stalwart. He is a rock.

  Any assertion to the contrary is categorically false.

  Any assertion to the contrary is a goddamned lie!!!

 

[January 2006]