Flynnlandia

There was much smoke but little fire last week as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee heard testimony from all sides on the fitness of tall, smooth, red-faced Edward Joseph Flynn, ex-chairman of the Democratic National Committee, to be Minister to Australia.

Wrote New York Herald Tribune Reporter Bert Andrews: "[The hearing] would have left an uninformed Australian puzzled as to whether America was trying to export Mr. Flynn as a diplomat or deport him as an undesirable." In grey suit and dazzling Charvet tie, which looked like a Dali dream, Ed Flynn denied all charges of graft and malfeasance made against him. Assistant Secretary of State G. Howland Shaw read a prepared statement calling Flynn "qualified," then deftly sidestepped all embarrassing questions. (Q: "Can you think of any poorer qualified man than Flynn?" A: "I am not in a position to answer a question of that sort.")

Flynn's opponents were unable to dredge up any wholly damning evidence. His positive qualifications for the job were still open to question, but this week Senate Democrats were ready to confirm him. There was one condition: that he resign his place as New York's male representative on the Democratic Committee. Apparently willing to accede, Ed Flynn coyly waited until he was sure of his diplomatic top hat before giving in.

More embarrassing to Ed Flynn than anything which took place in Washington was the fact that 3,000 miles away another Flynn--impulsive Cinemactor Errol--was also undergoing a personal ordeal (for rape). To Ed Flynn's annoyance, accounts of the two inquisitions continued to pop up side-by-side in the nation's press. Most amusing melange of the two stories appeared in the Denver Rocky Mountain Herald, a small weekly of 2,000 circulation, edited by the wife of Poet Thomas Hornsby Ferril. Said the Herald, in a front-page jingle titled Flynnlandia:

Flynns Errol, Ed, confuse my head,

I'm daft with yachts and paving blocks;

I'm all mixed up on right behaving,

(Who's without Flynn can throw the

first paving)

I'm all mixed up on women and wine,

(To Errol's human, but to Flynndivine!)

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.