Pants on Fire

President Musharraf has accused the United States of duplicity in urging him to take off his uniform at a time when Hillary Clinton is boasting that she wears an asbestos pants suit. “The U.S. wants to strip me of my clothing while allowing its citizens the latest fashions. It’s a typical example of Western hypocrisy”, Musharraf complained. General Musharraf also hinted darkly that Pakistan may have to develop its own asbestos pantsuit program if the West will not share the technology.
This setback occurred just as Assistant Secretary of State John Negroponte has wrapped up a productive visit to Pakistan, where he worked out a compromise in which Musharraf agreed to change into a cricket uniform as long as Benazir Bhutto would wear her girls’ field hockey kit, and allow Musharraf to spank her. In a phone conversation, a State Department spokesman suggested that Mrs. Clinton was interfering “in an unproductive way” in a tense situation. “This throws all of our delicate negotiations with President Musharraf into a cocked hat”, said the spokesman. “Musharraf was already pretty envious because he heard that Rudy Giuliani looked good in a dress.” Later, the spokesman called back and asked to take back the reference to a “cocked hat”.
An analyst for the Brookings Institution explained that the sudden mention of an asbestos pantsuit may have put Mr. Musharraf in a difficult position with his own military, who have been pestering him to obtain new uniforms so they can look nice while beating up pro-democracy lawyers. “The security forces feel that we ought to reward them for not catching Osama Bin Laden until after the 2008 elections. Meanwhile, we keep fobbing them off with advanced fighters and surface-to-air missiles.” The analyst went on to say that Musharraf’s threat to develop his own pantsuit line was, in all likelihood, purely for domestic consumption. “They’re bluffing on that one. He just has to placate his generals.” A technical source at the Pentagon agreed that Pakistan is years away from developing sophisticated clothing. “They don’t even have the patterns for culottes,” the source reported.
Returning from an extended Texas vacation and on his way to a long weekend at Camp David, President Bush seemed to be growing impatient with Pakistan’s prolonged difficulties. Asked if there was a “sartorial crisis”, the President replied that everything was fine in Sartoria, but Pakistan was a mess. “President Musharraf needs to take off his uniform,” the President repeated. “If he’s worried about what to wear, he can just wrap himself in the flag. That’s what I do.”