Geesh, what would you call this dope? Dead man plagiarizing?

Hill is scheduled to be executed Sept. 3 for the 1994 abortion clinic murders of physician John Britton of Fernandina Beach and retired Air Force Lt. Col. James Barrett of Pensacola.

To be sure, the execution will bring to an end the life of a sleazy terrorist, as well as perhaps silence the worst poet since Henry Gibson's tortured verse was featured on ``Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In.''

The days leading up to Hill's date with the mother of all needles have seen the absurdity of some yahoo sending threatening letters (accompanied by a bullet) to Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist, state Department of Corrections Secretary James Crosby, Florida State Prison Warden Joe Thompson and Pensacola Circuit Judge Frank Bell, who presided over the condemned wacko's original murder trial.

That's because in the twisted world of the extremist elements of the pro- life cabal, Hill, the Osama bin Laden of the abortion movement, is regarded as a heroic, cause celebre martyr.

Cyberclaptrap

Wouldn't that be a bit like marriage counselors holding up O.J. Simpson as a role model in anger management?

So it's hardly surprising if minor celebrities and/or organizations like Pee-wee Herman and the White Aryan Resistance movement can have their own Web sites, why not some hapless doofus sitting in a cell belching forth death row doggerel?

Hill's cyberclaptrap is filled with all manner of efforts to portray the cold- blooded murder of two men as some sort of act of principled conviction, which would be akin to Charles Manson claiming he orchestrated the murder of Sharon Tate in his capacity as a self-anointed movie critic.

And then - oh, dear - Hill tried his hand at poetry, or as it might otherwise be viewed, a weapon of mass delusion.

On Hill's Web site, one will find this piece of verse titled ``I Dreamed I Saw Paul Hill Last Night.'' Here is a painfully brief stanza:

`` `In Pensacola,' says I to him,

Him standing by my bed,

`They framed you on a murder charge,'

``Says Paul, `But I ain't dead,'

``Says Paul, `But I ain't dead.' ''

Memo to Paul Hill: Believe me, bubelah, if there is any justice, contrary to your wishful thinking, come Sept. 3 - you're gonna be dead.

Anarchist Anthem

As it turns out, thanks to several readers of this space far more into folk poetry and music than I am, we learn that Hill's masturbatory attempt at self-aggrandizing hero worship was little more than a tawdry rip- off of a 1936 song written by Earl Robinson and Alfred Hayes titled ``I Dreamed I Saw Joe Hill Last Night.''

The original lyrics eventually became something of an anthem for the American anarchist movement and often were sung by members of the expatriate Abraham Lincoln Brigade fighting in the Spanish Civil War against Francisco Franco.

Yep, a real toe-tapper.

The song itself is an homage to Joe Hill, a Swedish immigrant and organized labor activist who was executed by a Utah firing squad in 1915 on what some people, including even President Wilson, suspected were trumped-up murder charges.

Paul Hill's version literally is a 95 percent rip-off of the 1936 song, changing only references to his first name, Pensacola for Salt Lake City and abortion for labor unions.

A confession. Quite frankly, not being a folk music devotee, there is no way I would have recognized Paul Hill's shameless appropriation of the Hayes/Robinson work, unless of course it had been recorded by Ahmad Jamal or Oscar Peterson or Sarah Vaughan or featured on the classic ``Sinatra At the Sands'' album.

And so not only will Paul Hill go to his grave a convicted murderer and a terrorist, but also an abysmal poet and intellectual property thief.

Oh, and let's not forget, a liar of White House proportions.

Though there is some historical debate over whether Joe Hill indeed was framed for the Utah murder, there is no doubt of Paul Hill's guilt, his attempted pilfering of the Hayes/Robinson lyric notwithstanding.

The kindest view of Hill's theft of someone else's creation might be this merely was a parody the condemned man failed to attribute properly.

He can't claim he was too busy. It's not as if Paul Hill's schedule is all that crowded.

Still, this wouldn't be the first time Hill's penchant for phoniness caught up with him.

After all, for years now, Hill, an oafish double murderer, has been masquerading as a Christian man of faith.