Only Because ...

He's going have a chimp on his show do I bother to mention anything about Dennis Miller's GOP Knobshine Hour coming soon to one of those right wing cable networks. Only because of the chimp do I pull this quote:

"So I've hired a monkey," Miller says with some measure of pride, "and he's going to wear color-coded T-shirts to sync up with the terror-alert level."

The shocking thing about their research is that Garroway's original chimpanzee, J. Fred Muggs, was still around. "He lives out here in the Valley," Miller says.

But since he's in some kind of chimp retirement, they're using another one, Miller says. "We can't use the name J. Fred Muggs. But we've got our own chimp.

"He's young; he's a comer," Miller boasts, adding that the animal is "still not too jaded to throw his fecal matter at you, like the original."

I've acknowledged the chimp; now I can wash my hands of this messy business. [Hartford Courant, reg. req'd.]