Bubba sure loves the ladies. Especially the mummified human sacrifice victims. Clinton's Mummy Love From the Files of Fortean Slips by D. Trull Enigma Editor dtrull@parascope.com In an election year, interminable accusations by Politician X against Politician Y's "values" and "character" start flying like soundbite spitballs. The last thing Fortean Slips wants is to enter this pointless maelstrom of mudslinging and percentage points; that's best left to the political ads and media pundits. But this once, there must be an exception. I mean, our nation's president announced that he was attracted to a 500-year-old mummy! How in the name of Chuck Fort can I help but whack this manna from weird-news heaven right out of the ballpark? Love him or hate him, Bill Clinton has exhibited one persistent tendency that no one can feasibly deny: he digs the chicks. Not that there's anything unpresidential about that, necessarily -- when JFK was out scoring with Marilyn Monroe, it was kind of cool. But Clinton is not too keen on parlaying his executive libido into bragging rights that might impress his he-man voter buddies, preferring to distance himself emphatically from any and all untoward involvement with Gennifer, and Paula, and Hillary. So I guess when the Chief sees a seemingly safe opportunity to lift the lid off his pent-up, turbulent cauldron of rapturous appreciation for the ladies, he's just gotta go for it. On May 21, President and Mrs. Clinton attended the opening of an exhibit at Washington's National Geographic Society. A remarkably well preserved Incan mummy, the "Princess of Ampato," was discovered last September, frozen in ice near the top of a volcano in Peru. Also called "Juanita" and the "Ice Maiden," the girl is believed to have been killed by a blow to the head at the age of 12 to 14 as a sacrifice to the gods. The mummy has much of its skin and facial features intact and is considered the best preserved human body dating from pre-Columbian America ever found. Clinton later that day attended a Democratic National Committee fund-raiser. One of the speakers at the gathering, Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, mentioned the Peruvian mummy, suggesting that she had dated Bob Dole in high school. When Clinton was given the floor he chose to continue the lighthearted discussion of the mummy, firing off a few off-the-cuff "jokes" which his scriptwriters would undoubtedly have liked to review with him beforehand. "I don't know if you've seen that mummy," the President remarked with a rascally grin, "but you know, if I were a single man, I might ask that mummy out. That's a good looking mummy! That mummy looks better than I do on my worst days." Really. He said that. The AP reported it. They showed it on the news. Tom Brokaw sure looked bewildered after he broadcast the item, as if Clinton had just shaved his head and torn up the Pope's picture while refusing to sing the National Anthem. Although the media has not given the story enough play for it to blow into a major scandal, the Mummygate affair has offended a lot of people. Objectors have cited it to charge Clinton with misogyny, lack of respect for other cultures, insensitivity toward a girl who was cruelly murdered, insinuations of sex with a minor, insinuations of necrophilia, and just generally being an all-around doofus. Undoubtedly, Bubba should never even have considered breathing a syllable about that poor mummy, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I'm pretty sure it was an innocuous attempt at good ol' Southern humor, which is characterized by exaggeration, self-deprecation and facetious references to sex. And Clinton's remark is clearly couched in hypothetical terms -- he never claimed he was ready to hop in the sarcophagus and start smoochin'. But so what? Let's just pretend to take him literally and milk this mess for all the cheap comedy it's worth! Clinton's made this one so easy, I'm going to give you a whole bushel of lame closing jokes to choose from: PUNCH LINE A: Clinton wasn't really asking the mummy out himself -- he was just trying to fix her up with Al Gore, since they have such similar personalities. PUNCH LINE B: It was bad enough that time Dan Quayle came back from Peru with that erect-penis novelty doll -- but at least he didn't want to sleep with it. As far as we know. PUNCH LINE C: Clinton was smitten by the mummy the instant as he heard it had been thawed out of long-frozen ice and was still recognizably human underneath -- he's spent the past twenty years wishing desperately that a team of archaeologists would do the same with Hillary. (Thanks, Mr. President!) (c) Copyright 1996 ParaScope, Inc. Next: The Temple of Elvis Fortean Slips Index What do you think? Tell us in the message boards!