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
Web Page:  http://www.aci.net/kalliste/