Cookiegate - satire on Iran-Contra hearings

Whole Earth Review, Spring, 1989 by Will Baker

We continue our coverage of the Special Committee Hearings, now in their fourth day, with the testimony of Private Toliver Soforth, who will be taking the stand in a few moments. Viewers will recall yesterday's dramatic revelations that several cookies are now believed missing from the public jar, some of them perhaps in the possession of Other-Side-of-the-Tracks groups with access to sticks and - according to some authorities stones. Those revelations, coming from Deputy Assistant Undersecretary of the Kitchen Regina Momaday, followed Monday's bombshell: profits from the cookie sales may have been kept in Swiss chocolate later traded for candy cigarettes targeted for Latino children, a move to stunt their growth and thus interdict the flow of major-league talent from the barrios south of the border. Many observers believe that Soforth may supply the link - a "smoking cigarette" - to the President. We see that the Committee members have taken their seats, and Counsel Julius Orangefeldt is ready to resume questioning, so let's go to the floor ...

Counsel: Good morning, Private Soforth. Soforth: Good morning, Mr.

Orangefeldt. I'd like to begin, if I may, with the Pledge of Allegiance. (Rustling, mumbling, cries, the creak of many chairs as all in the chambers rise and chorus the Pledge.)

Counsel: Thank you, Private. May Soforth: I'd also like to ask the chairman to lead this committee in two minutes of silent prayer. They're going to need it.

(Laughter, more rustling. The Chairman bows his head and the room is silent for two minutes.)

Counsel: Thank you again, Private. We Soforth: Thank the Lord. He's the

Commander-in-chief.

(Thunderous applause, Catcalls at the Committee members.)

Soforth: And I'd just like to add one thing. I'm here sir. Right in front of you. A private just doing his job. My mother, you see, didn't have an abortion. She grew up poor on a hog farm in Arkansas and baked her own cookies for her own family.

(More thunderous applause. More catcalls.)

Counsel: You are indeed here, Private. We acknowledge that, with every mark of personal respect for your mother. But we do have an investigation to complete, about these cookies.

Soforth: Cookies?

Counsel: Yes, Private. Cookies. You know the cookies I am speaking of?

Soforth: I'm not sure, sir. That's a very imprecise

term. There are all kinds

of cookies. Counsel: We were speaking yesterday of certain confections, certain pastries, that found their way across the tracks. You took those cookies -

Soforth: I'm sorry, sir. That's not correct. I didn't take the cookies, if they were cookies. Certain items were made available to me, in my capacity as Private in Charge of Kitchen Staff Security.

Counsel:All right, then. Certain cookies were "made available" to you. Describe -

Soforth: Again, sir, I'm not sure these were cookies. "Cookies" has certain connotations. Sugar, diversion, some kind of special treat, even a slang meaning having to do with the members of the fair sex, which I have never in any way shape or form had any hanky-panky with, and as a Marine I resent -

Counsel: Then what do you call these items, Private?

Soforth: What do I call them?

Counsel: Yes, what do you call them?

Soforth: My understanding was that these items were primarily unbleached flour, dried fruit, dairy products, cacao bean, and a little sweetener - probably organic honey. Some people would call them health foods. Sort of yuppie hardtack.

Counsel: I see. But wasn't the dried fruit actually raisins, and isn't cacao known as chocolate in common parlance? Wouldn't some people simply call these chocolate raisin cookies?

Soforth: Some people will say anything, and, you know, one man's dried fruit is another man's raisin. But as I said, sir, whatever you call them I didn't take them. My first encounter, if I remember correctly, was completely inadvertent.

Counsel: You're speaking of the so-called crumb crumble," the events of May 17th? When you first consumed -

(Penrod S. Limehouse, Soforth's counsel, interrupts.)

Limehouse: I object, Mister Chairman. Counsel is putting words in my client's mouth. He knows perfectly well that Private Soforth did not know at this point what the item was. But it was not a" pastry, even an unidentified pastry.

Soforth: That's right, it was absolutely not a cookie.

Counsel: It was a piece of cookie, wasn't it?

Soforth: That's your word, sir, not mine. Counsel; A crumb, then? Will you accept crumb, Private?

Soforth after long consultation with Limehouse): it appeared to be a crumb of some kind.

Counsel: You then consumed this crumb? Soforth: No, I wouldn't say that. More like tasted.

Counsel: Did you swallow? Soforth after more consultation): I can't honestly say, sir. I don't remember.

Counsel: In any case you tasted a crumb of what might be a cookie. You noticed other crumbs in the vicinity of the jar, Did you report this fact to Undersecretary Momaday?

Soforth: No sir. Counsel: Why not?

Soforth: Well ... laughs) ... my job was not to tell the Undersec.