By Dick Sean
True Dork Times Elocution Editor

WASHINGTON, D.C. (TDT)  Buoyed by stratospheric approval ratings and a general patriotic fervor leading American citizens to favor any and all military action, U.S. President George W. Bush told a worldwide audience yesterday that, due to continued attacks on his verbiage, he would devote all of America's intelligence and military powers to defeating the tyrannical forces of the self-appointed guardians of the English language.  "These people must be stopped," he said, haltingly. "The grammar police and the syntax service have hounded me from day one. But they misunderestimated their opponent."

Despite the taxing of military resources in the current War on Terrorism, Bush declared without hesitation that the U.S. would achieve a "winning victory" in this battle.  In response to critics' suggestions that military action was ill-suited to battle this particular foe, and to counter reporters' questions about specific deployments, the President refused to specify the manner in which U.S. troops would be used in fighting against Linguistic Fundamentalism.  Doing so, he explained, would place them in harm's way.

Secretary of State Colin Powell later noted that the miltary has long been prepared to fight battles simultaneously in two distinct theaters.  But he stressed that this war was not the United States' alone to fight, and called on all other nations to join the assault.  "Operation Pointy-Headed Geeks is a fight for the freedom of our President, and politicians everywhere, to mangle the English language however they see fit," Powell announced.  Two hours later, the offensive was renamed Operation No, You Look It Up.  Still later, it was re-dubbed Operation Toppled Ivory Tower.

Bush, in an address to the American people, indicated that in building this coalition, he would especially be enlisting the help of "those foreign ones, that don't speak the tongue very well."  He also cast pointed aspersions at several nations he identified as "Harboring feelings of linguistic superiority," noting that Canada, in particular, felt the need to add the letter "u" to words like "color" and "harbor," as if they felt it necessary to differentiate themselves from Americans.  "Don't think we haven't noticed," the President warned.

Members of the Bush Cabinet were hard at work yesterday, mobilizing domestic and international support for the effort.  In one of his twice-hourly press conferences yesterday, Attorney General John Ashcroft declared that the FBI would immediately begin using Version 2.0 of its powerful Carnivore program, to scan all emails in transit within the U.S.  "Anyone sending or receiving correspondence devoid of either spelling or grammatical errors will be immediately 'red-flagged' as being potential sympathizers or conspirators with this insidious menace," he explained. "We will root out these English language fundamentalists from our soil, and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law." After pausing briefly to analyze his wording, he added, hastily, "There ain't no room for this kind of behavior in our country."

Civil liberties groups were, predictably, aghast at these developments, as they usually are whenever our kind, gentle government tries to do anything to make things better.  "This just doesn't make any sense," wailed one activist, "These people haven't hurt anyone, they just want to protect the English language."

"On the contrary," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters, "They have hurt the President's pride, and his feelings."

In a hastily-typed response, the American Civil Liberties Union replied, "Okay, fine, we gave up on the First Amendment a while ago, but can't we at least get anyone interested in protecting against illegal search and seizure?  Anyone?  Ah, screw it. Oops, we meant 'seazure,' Mr. Carnivore, sir."

A CNN/Gallup overnight poll revealed 67% of Americans stated that they were either "happy" or "extra happy" that the government was weeding out suspected grammarians using its newly-acquired technology-based surveillance.  "You just can't trust those people," was the most frequent comment.

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