Up to code. (Unplugged).

At a recent lesbian health conference in Washington, D.C., two attendees were idly watching the world go by from their hotel window when the Presidential motorcade roared past. Back from a run? Off to the ranch? Late for a war?

The two women, perhaps still miffed that the Department of Health and Human Services had cut $75,000 in funding three months prior to the conference, flipped the bird at the tinted windows of what they thought was the Bushmobile. Fifteen minutes later, the Secret Service knocked on their door. They questioned the women, "What did you mean by that?"

Of course, in some parallel universe, the gesture could be interpreted as a friendly reminder to schedule another executive colonoscopy, but now that it seems we will be at war until we smoke out the last remaining terrorist or the Viagra runs out (whichever comes first), the shocking inability of our on-the-ground human intelligence personnel to decipher the near universal, meaning of the flipped bird is more disturbing than ever.

To jump into the material breach, I have had to fire up my old Cracker Jack decoder ring for what promises to be a very busy code and flu season. Here are some areas I am surveilling.

After the mid-term elections, after the Democrats were whupped by themselves and by Bush's coattails, Nancy Pelosi of California was voted House Minority Leader. Whenever the Democrats are past hope, past repairing, they call in a woman who couldn't possibly fix things in the time allotted. When she fails publicly, flamingly, the guys will say we told you so and then won't try a woman for another millennium.

Pelosi replaced the hapless, therefore perfect Democratic Presidential candidate, Dick Gephardt. Although he was never called a "St. Louis Democrat," she was preemptively called "a San Francisco Democrat." William Safire, that old warhead, deconstructed something from the appositive about being liberal, poor-loving, universal-health-carish, but danced away from the encoded innuendo, "She loves the gays." Because of that leftish orientation, it is implied Pelosi would be ill-suited for the forward-leaning, muscular [read "masculine"] Bush foreign policy that finally answers the question, "Do you Yahoo?" (If an asshole's a muscle, Bush is a strongman.)

Just after the mid-term election, another audiotape from the still-at-large-but-downgraded-to-second-in-evility-behind-Saddam. What timing! After many tests, Donald Rumsfeld, People Magazine's Sexiest Cabinet Member (Christine Todd Whitman is crushed), verified that the voice on the tape asking "Can you hear me now?" was indeed the Avis of Evil.

Although no sirens sounded and the rainbow color wheel of terror did not ratchet up to red, the FBI released a statement that a "spectacular" terror event was imminent. It was the creepiest of crawls on TV. Spectacular? I'm no beautiful mind, but that one word indicated to me that the military had not yet mustered out all the gay translators.

Now part of the job of cryptographer is the very famous connecting the dots. I am quite close to cracking the code on the following: The Anti-Bullying Miss America, 2002; The Masters; Die Another Day; Juggernaut George calling NATO his "posse"; identity thefts; the sniper's Bushmaster rifle; and the return from the crypt of Henry Kissinger.

Meanwhile, so the Secret Service won't see me flipping the you-know-what, I'm wearing mittens.

Kate "On Hans Blixen!" Clinton is a humorist.