WASHINGTON -- My name is Bucky Beaver. I'm accused of eating beloved cherry trees at the Tidal Basin near the Jefferson Memorial.
My fellow Americans, I tell you I didn't do anything worse than President Clinton -- and you allowed him to stay on the banks of the Potomac. So hear my plea, and let me stay too.I even studied Mr. Clinton and his lawyers as I've prepared my defense.
Now, I've been asked repeatedly -- much as Clinton and Richard Nixon were -- about what did I gnaw, and when did I gnaw it?
OK, I'm a beaver. I eat wood. All beavers do. We just can't help it.
Americans knew that when they elected to leave us along the Potomac -- so they shouldn't be surprised. The press even reported my earlier relationships with birch and willow, but Americans didn't seem to care.
Some have wanted me to act like George Washington and admit I chopped down the cherry trees. Well, I will acknowledge here that I had an inappropriate relationship with a cherry tree.
But I have apologized to the cherry tree. Now, I feel it is time to move on with the important business of our nation -- such as bombing small European countries.
By the way, the House delayed (but didn't cancel) an impeachment vote last year when Clinton started some bombing.
He was bombing again in Kosovo when someone or something started cutting down cherry trees along the Tidal Basin, just as tourists began arriving to look at the annual blooms. But the bombing didn't divert international attention from that. If anything, the cherry trees were almost a bigger story. It just isn't fair.
An army of TV cameras surrounded the water and trees looking for any glimpse of a beaver. They assumed a beaver had injured the trees just because of itty-bitty teeth marks on the stumps, and because someone had stripped the (tasty) bark from them. OK, I admit because of DNA evidence on the bite marks that I had some bark from downed trees.
But no one actually saw me or any beaver attacking a tree. Still, it became big news when I and a friend were spotted merely swimming in the tidal basin near the trees.
The press seemed to be on my side at first. The Washington Post referred to me as a cute furry animal. But when rangers couldn't catch me, and some more trees somehow were cut down, the paper started calling me a "rodent," like I'm a big rat.
Then they called in professional trappers. And Clinton thinks he had a tough time with Kenneth Starr. They were leaving traps to catch me everywhere. When I went for a nice piece of willow -- not cherry -- I found myself in the slammer.
But I did look good on TV. A lot of people had sympathy and wanted me released.
Some thought I was the victim of a vast right-wing conspiracy that had built so many houses up the river that I was forced into the Tidal Basin where I was framed.
Some have insisted that I answer the following questions, so I will.
Did I chop down the cherry tree? Absolutely not. The definition of the word "chop" in my dictionary is "to cut by striking with a sharp instrument." I used no ax, hatchet or chain saw. So technically, I chopped down no cherry trees.
What, you want to ask if I chewed down the tree? Well, my dictionary says the word "chew" means "to reduce food to a pulp in the mouth (note it says in the mouth) by grinding it between the teeth with the help of the tongue."
So, no, I absolutely did not chew down any trees. (I can't fit a tree in my mouth, so technically I didn't chew it down under the common definition of that word.)
Is the Tidal Basin a proper home for beavers? Well, of course, it depends on your definition of the word "is."
In short, I should not be banished from my spot on the Potomac. I won't be, either -- if I can just somehow get a trial before the Senate and demand a two-thirds vote for conviction.
Deseret News Washington correspondent Lee Davidson can be reached by e-mail at leed@dgs.dgsys.com