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Trading Palaces
 | | Bob Vila, one of the faces behind the new Iraq. | | With the removal of retired Army Lt. General Jay Garner, the Bush administration announced today that the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) will assume responsibility for the remodeling of Iraq. Despite overtures from the United Nations, the Iraqi renovations will be performed primarily by U.S. and British forces.
DOI Secretary Bob Vila announced the U.S. and Great Britain would be forming a ‘Dream Team’ of interior redecorators and designers from both countries, and had no need of additional help from other UN member nations.
“We will gladly accept any assistance the U.N. or E.U. can provide in terms of support materials, such as drop cloths, coveralls or glue guns,” said Vila during a DOI press conference. “But as far as overall interior design of the New Iraq, they will have no input.”
Vila’s ‘Dream Team’ will include his close associate Norm Abram of PBS’s ‘This Old House’, Page Davis of TLC’s ‘Trading Spaces’, Christopher Lowell of Discovery Network’s ‘The Christopher Lowell Show’, Martha Stewart, and members of the BBC’s ‘Trading Rooms – House Invaders’ cast.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, addressing the European Conference in Athens on Thursday, expressed his frustration with this latest exclusion of the United Nations in Iraq.
“The United Nations is firmly opposed to yet another bilateral renovation approach,” said the Secretary-General. “To impose the designs of the United States and Great Britain on the people of Iraq, ignoring the desires of the Iraqi people, is dangerous and short-sighted. I’ve looked at the Coalition’s remodeling ‘Dream Team’. Have you seen some of the things these people have done? It’s awful! Martha Stewart will want hundreds of glass jars filled with fresh rose petals, Christopher Lowell will be having every Iraqi male cutting thousands of swags of brightly colored fabrics – presumably to hang form the rusty lamps that have been looted, and those women from Trading Spaces will end up pissing off the entire Iraqi population within days!”
Sources within the DOI told acknowledged that the high-profile personalities on the Dream Team could lead to difficulties in the days ahead. One insider told of rifts within the group already forming.
 | | At long last, the Americas will be free of Martha Stewart... atleast for a while. | | “Most of these people are pretty high-strung,” said one department official. “We had a preliminary meeting today to sketch out some ideas and frankly, it didn’t go as well as we had hoped. Martha was on her cell phone half the time, ranting about ‘more information’, and the women from the BBC show wanted to know when the Inspector General was going to lunch, so they could redo his office with plaid floorboards and distressed yogurt-finish walls. With his New England accent, nobody understood what Norm was saying half the time. And there was a real brew-ha-ha between Christopher Lowell and Paige Davis, but I’m not even going there.”
As the host for the hit ‘Trading Spaces’ program, Ms. Davis has developed a reputation of being ‘difficult’ with both cast members and homeowners. In a telephone interview, Christopher Lowell confirmed that there was in fact some friction within the group.
“Paige is SUCH a bitch!” said Lowell from his Georgetown hotel. “I mean, with her everything is ‘Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up so I can take all the credit’. And that Martha! We’re going to redo everything with conch shells from K-Mart? DON’T THINK SO! I tried to give Norm one of my embroidered work aprons with the ‘You Can Do It’ logo on the front, and he told me he was perfectly happy with his ‘Yankee Workshop’ apron. Have you seen that thing? Puh-LEASE! It’s filthy!”
Group tensions aside, the most divisive issue facing Vila’s team is a simple commodity: paint. Both Stewart and Lowell have their own paint lines, carried by K-Mart and The Home Shopping Network respectively, and Vila has Bob Vila Paints at Sears full-line and hardware stores worldwide. Despite the possible conflicts of interest and commercial competition, Vila remained upbeat about the advantages of multiple designer paint lines.
“The Iraqi people are under a great deal of stress right now,” said Vila. “With the spectrum of choices we offer through our combined paint lines, we are helping relieve a bit of that stress. An Iraqi homeowner can go online right now and begin choosing the types and colors best suited for their home. Why, with Christopher’s pre-coordinated interior colors, and my full line of signature exterior mix-and-match color combos, we’ve taken the guesswork out of color selection. That’s a real timesaver. And Martha’s complete Color Palette line is available at close-out prices right now. It’s a decorating dream come true!”
Most insiders feel that the renovations required for much of Iraq could take up to three years, but Vila gave a more optimistic timetable.
“The hardest part of any remodeling job is the demolition,” said Vila. “The Coalition forces have taken care of that for us. What’s left is the fun stuff. We’ll be done with most of Baghdad in ten or twelve episodes. It’s like Christopher says, ‘If you can dream it, you can do it.’
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