Ashcroft Releases Streamlined Bill of Rights

"Rights Lite" Praised, Hailed Across U.S.

From Wire Reports, WASHINGTON- U.S. Attorney General, John Ashcroft announced ground-breaking improvements to the U.S. Bill of Rights at a small ceremony held this morning at an undisclosed location. The sleek, chic evolution promises to be an edgier improvement to the dusty tome of yesteryear.

"The old version read like Shakespeare. It was wordy. To be honest, D.O.J. was having a heck of a time remembering 'em all," explained the Attorney General, referring to the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

Ashcroft promises a document that will fit nicely on one page, even in big type. This in an effort to make the B.O.R. accessible.

"We were looking for brevity, something short enough you could write it all down on one of your hands. Because there were so many words, we had a situation where the visually impaired could not read the type which was so very very small. To print on two pages would have impacted on trees already victimized by fires this year. Printing on both sides would have meant people with disabilities -- like the superman guy -- would have had to flip the page over. Not everyone is fortunate enough to be able to do that."

The Attorney General politely discouraged any public criticism of the revision, reminding the handful of guests present about the elimination of the first amendment. He promised that every real American loved the changes, and told us to write that. We did.

"I promise you, the rewrite is only a formality. We stopped using most of these a long, long time ago."

Ashcroft promises to apply this same sensitivity to other wordy documents in our nation’s archives. Thank you, John! -bcp