Monday, November 28, 2005

“Deserting a Sinking Ship”

Washington, Nov. 28 –

Reports from the Potomac basin today indicate that the Presidential yacht is taking on water at an alarming rate. Despite administration efforts to spin water overboard, the ship is said to be in danger of capsizing and going to the bottom.

The yacht suffered major damage during Hurricane Katrina, although nautical experts say that hairline cracks had already been detected below the ship’s water line. Efforts to repair the craft in the hurricane’s aftermath were hampered by aides’ inability to get the President’s attention for five days while damage worsened. The President was reportedly riding his bicycle at the time.

Stories of the vessel’s grave condition have gained added credibility from accounts of rats racing to leave the craft, squealing and nipping at each other in their frenzied haste to abandon ship. Republican politicians, who were partying on the ship at the time it ran into foul weather, are increasingly alarmed at the vessel’s condition. Old hands Brent Scowcroft and Lawrence Wilkerson, who served aboard when the current captain’s father was at the helm, jumped ship in the past few weeks.

Republican Jerry Kilgore, locked in a neck-and-neck contest with Tim Kaine in the Virginia gubernatorial race, called Mr. Bush in for a last-minute joint appearance in hopes of giving his campaign a boost. He lost by a stunning six percentage points. Commentators are unable to account for the sudden shift in voter sentiment. It is reported, however, that the results sprang another leak in the vessel’s hull.

Subsequently, Senator Rick Santorum, trailing his challenger by sixteen points in recent polls, was unable to rearrange his schedule to appear with Mr. Bush during the President’s recent trip to Pennsylvania.

Eyewitnesses say that ropes mooring the craft are so crowded with panicky rats biting and infighting that the ropes are slick with blood and hazardous to cross. Several rats have been knocked off and apparently drowned; others are expected to fall now that Patrick Fitzgerald has convened a new grand jury.

Unconfirmed reports describe an exodus of huge rats with a purplish hue to their turncoats. These so-called Democ rats took up lodging on the Presidential ship in fair weather, voting for a series of Presidential measures, including tax cuts for the wealthy, the Iraq war, the Patriot Act, and the bankruptcy bill. Almost all are said to have fled the ship now, and are attempting to mingle with their brethren and sisters who had stayed ashore.

© Tony Russell, 2005

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