October Surprises

by J. Orlin Grabbe

           "Now I wish I could give Brother Bill his great thrill
           I would set him in chains at the top of the hill                        
           Then send out for some pillars and Cecil B. DeMille . . ."
                       -Bob Dylan, Tombstone Blues  

Brother Bill Clinton has in mind an October Surprise, where he gets to play Sampson and bomb the hell out of Iran in full Technicolor. After all, Iran is a little puppy dog with few air defenses, while Syria is a bobcat no one wants a piece of. Brother Bill can’t afford a lot of casualties: the voters wouldn’t like that. So he’s planning to pick on Iran. And Bill has precedent also: the U.S. bombing of Libya because of the Syrian-inspired bombing of a West German nightclub during the Reagan administration.

His only problem is with U.S. allies. They haven’t seen much evidence of Iranian involvement in the bombing of U.S. soldiers at Dharhan, or the downing of TWA Flight 800, or the inter-state electrical blackouts in the U.S. Except, of course, for Israel, who has chimed in, beating the war drums for a U.S. attack on Iran. ("Let’s you and him fight. But don’t send us the bill like you did with Saudia Arabia. Instead, give us a handout because we cheered you on.")

The main thing Brother Bill knows is that going to war rallies the voters. And it might ward off all those other little problems, like family indictments and those disloyal Democrats lead by Robert Strauss. If he can just hang on . . .

Bob Dole is not looking for an October Surprise. But his wife’s financial shenanigans have ensured that he will get one anyway. Will it be a Jack Kemp versus Jay Rockefeller choice come November? A Hobbsian choice, I grant you-- but better than a coke-head bent on going to war for his personal political advancement.

Kenneth Starr is looking for an October Surprise. He has a gift for Hillary. Some new personnel have joined Starr’s operation this past week. Are they gearing up for the final battle of good versus evil? Will they wait until October?

Jim Guy Tucker has an October Surprise. It consists of some boxes of documents related to the drug trade at Mena airport. The McDougals wished they had an October Surprise. But they have nothing to deliver that everyone doesn’t already know.

The Governor of Kentucky got his October Surprise early. In "The Governor of Kentucky to be Indicted Soon?" , posted on August 3, I relayed the Angel of Death’s prediction that the governor would soon be indicted. Then on August 7, it was announced in Lexington that the Governor Paul Patton would be called before a grand jury. What does that have to do with Arkansas?

Well, Jackson Stephens was planned on moving his money-laundering operation out of Arkansas and into Kentucky banks. Arkansas institutions were too closely watched. So Stephens and his Japanese money-laundering cohorts apparently made a deal with Governor Paul Patton to allow the laundary to be run out of Kentucky. U.S. intelligence officials were alarmed at the growing Kentucky presence of the Yakuzi. So they and others invited the Yakuzi to go home, hardly giving them time to buy up all the Gold Maker’s Mark they could get their hands on.

The nature of Credit Lyonnaise’s October Surprise remains to be seen. In "The Clinton Crash", posted July 15, I noted "CL is said to be looking for a loan of $2 to $3 billion--it needs a capital infusion desperately. No takers." Well, CL’s problems are now in the headlines of European papers. Wonder if the papers will figure out why selling MGM back to Kerkorian didn’t do the trick? What do Union Bank of Switzerland and Credit Suisse have that Credit Lyonnaise doesn’t have?

Pulsar Data Systems has an October Surprise. Perhaps sometime in October they will explain why the software they provided for the White House Big Brother Data Base (WHODB) contains a Systematics (Alltel Information Services) back door.

The U.S. public will likely receive an October Surprise. Undoubtedly more trees will fall on power lines and cause multi-state blackouts. After all, the butcher can't afford to tell the sheep the wolf is at the door. They might scatter before he has a go at them himself.

August 16, 1996
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