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Frat Coup d' État Plot Exposed!A Chatterbox investigation.

By Timothy Noah
Posted Thursday, Dec. 5, 2002, at 4:18 PM ET

It had to happen. With George W. Bush, former president of Yale's DKE chapter, in control of the White House, the Greeks are poised to overthrow the government of the United States. The North American Intrafraternity Conference has hired Patton Boggs, the powerhouse Washington law firm, to lay the groundwork. Fortunately, they were careless enough to litter evidence of their planned coup d'état all over the Web. (Skull & Bones would never make the same mistake.) Last May, Patton Boggs set up meetings for Greek leaders with Sens. Trent Lott, Thad Cochran, John Kyl, and staff aides for John Edwards, Edward Kennedy, John Breaux, and other bipartisan heavyweights. Two months later, 45 "influential Washington, D.C., fraternity and sorority alumni" gathered to lay the groundwork for a new lobby group called the Greek Public Affairs Coalition, or Greek PAC. The master plan for Greek PAC is laid out in this Oct. 15 memo by Patton Boggs associate Kevin O'Neill, who, according to his official biography, "was part of a small, select team of Patton Boggs attorneys who served as legal counsel to the Presidential Inaugural Committee." (Translation: He owns Dubya.) A "public announcement" is planned for "early in 2003." Chatterbox pictures a toga-clad jefe hoisting an AK-47 as he appears simultaneously on every TV channel, calmly announcing that the resisters will be dealt with harshly.

Other plans:

  • Establish contact with "Washington-area alumni clubs run by individual fraternities and sororities." Patton Boggs throws a kegger!
  • Restart "the Congressional Greek Caucus." This will be hard to get going without Dan Quayle.
  • Research "the long-term goal of developing an organization that might potentially raise funds or provide volunteer manpower for Greek candidates running for office." No use letting that "PAC" acronym go to waste.
  • "Develop templates organizations can use to report positive stories in the media" such as the long-term benefit of exercising the gastrointestinal tract by yodeling down the big porcelain telephone.
  • Combat "negative stereotypes" likely to be retailed in two forthcoming MTV reality series about fraternity life. For ideas, see this propag—er, "research" sheet.
  • Hire interns for the summer of 2003. Promise free brewskis.
  • Identify Greeks working as congressional staffers. The Greeks have already compiled a list of the Greek affiliations of key executive branch officials. (Who knew that, before he dropped out of college, Karl Rove pledged Pi Kappa Alpha?) There's a similar list showing Greek affiliations for 183 members of Congress and their spouses.
  • Insert "freedom of association" language into the forthcoming congressional reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. The freaks don't want no Greeks.
  • Get Congress to appropriate federal money to improve fire safety in frat houses. Those fire extinguishers are expensive to refill after you've foamed the girls' dorms!
  • Make "Wooly Bully" the national anthem. OK, they didn't really suggest that.

Chatterbox has sounded the klaxon. The rest, John Q. Citizen, is up to you.

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Timothy Noah is a senior writer at Slate.
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