Reprehensible

deadline Poet

By Calvin Trillin

This article appeared in the December 19, 2005 edition of The Nation.

December 1, 2005

(Crooned to the tune of "Unforgettable," that old Nat King Cole favorite, by Dick "Liar Liar Pants on Fire" Cheney)

Reprehensible--that word is for
Charges we misled our folks to war.
Like, despite the facts, I'd demagogue
Atta's meeting with Iraq in Prague.
It still may have been. The facts are not in.

Reprehensible. It's just a crime
Saying that a liar is what I'm.
Like, we talked of mushroom clouds to come
From the tubes made of aluminum.
For all that we knew, it might have been true.

Subscriber Login

4 ISSUES FREE

Subscribe Now!

The only way to read this article and the full contents of each week's issue of The Nation online is by subscribing to the magazine. Subscribe now and read this article -- and every article published since for the past five years -- right now.

There's no obligation -- try The Nation for four weeks free.

.

About Calvin Trillin

Calvin Trillin is The Nation's "deadline poet." He has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1963 and has written the syndicated weekly column "Uncivil Liberties" since 1986. He has authored many, many books, including Tepper's Not Going Out and Deadline Poet: My Life as a Doggerelist. more...
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

Blogs

» The Beat

Another Helping of FDR Please | Obama should follow the New Deal president's example and make his Thanksgiving Proclamation a call for economic justice.
John Nichols

» Editor's Cut

Filibuster Follies | "The filibuster has become a cancer growing inside the world's greatest deliberative body."
Katrina vanden Heuvel
60 Comments

» The Notion

Bad Black Mothers | For African American women, reproduction has never been an entirely private matter.
Melissa Harris-Lacewell
73 Comments

» Act Now!

Coal Country | Stunning film reveals new dimensions to the cost of America's over-reliance on coal.
Peter Rothberg
102 Comments

» The Dreyfuss Report

A Kingdom of Bicycles No Longer | China's ambassador for climate change speaks on the eve of the Copenhagen summit meeting.
Robert Dreyfuss
56 Comments

» Altercation

Slacker Friday | The "Second Amendment" sale; the raving paranoids of the right.
Eric Alterman