Army Special Forces: Stealthy, Deadly and Now Handy With a Llama

Biden's Gaffe, as It Was Foretold

Some people may have been surprised when Sen. Joseph R. Biden (D-Del.) opened his presidential campaign Wednesday and promptly put his foot in his mouth. Most people expected something like that sooner or later.

But only Roger Simon, writing a fictional story that appears in this month's Washingtonian anticipating a successful presidential race for Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), actually reported the event before it happened.

"It was wild out there for a while," Simon wrote. " 'Everybody is running for president,' Joe Biden had joked on his campaign plane. . . . 'A Jew, a woman, a black, a Mormon. It's getting like the bar scene in Star Wars!' . . .

"A blogger on the Biden plane caught Biden's Star Wars joke on videotape; it was on YouTube 12 minutes after the plane landed and all five networks in two hours. . . .

"The next morning, an ashed-faced Biden withdrew from the race, even though Bloomberg, Clinton, Obama and Romney had come to his defense.

" 'Perhaps it was without real humor,' Obama said of the joke, 'but it was also without real malice.'

"It did not matter," Simon wrote.

Of course, Biden hasn't withdrawn. Yet.

Retired Acrobat Caught in Justice's Net

This just in! The Justice Department reports that retired Ringling Bros. acrobat Kristo Ivanov, 70, pleaded guilty Friday in U.S. District Court in Orlando to helping smuggle as many as 870 illegal immigrants in the past five years "through fraudulent means."

Ivanov, through his circus booking agency, Magic Star Entertainment, had vouched that the people were sword-swallowers, clowns, acrobats, magicians and jugglers coming to work in Florida circuses.

"In fact, none of the aliens had been hired by any of the circuses listed in the visa applications," the Justice Department said. Ivanov, who charged each person $500 to $2,500 per application, agreed to forfeit about $600,000 in smuggling fees.