political humor

When the Iranian protests started, some conservative columnists criticized President Obama for not denouncing the Iranian government and declaring the election a sham.

They were right. Nothing is more important in Iran than the words of an American president. Obama could have toppled the Iranian regime like a house of kabob sticks if he had spoken out.

How? The following may surprise non-American readers, but this is what happens whenever a U.S. President speaks out against evil.

1. The President says something.

Courtesy of Getty Images

2. His words are transferred to The U.S. Photoshop factory, where they are embossed and made shiny.

Courtesy of "How Stuff Works"

3. The words are strapped to the back of a flying unicorn, who soars overseas to deliver the words to the foreign leader in question.

Courtesy of All That Is Good In The World

4. After arriving, the flying unicorn hurls the words from the heavens like a javelin, killing the tyrant and making everyone yell “Yay!” and “We’re Happy!” And possibly other happy words, especially if the unicorn takes a poop, because unicorns poop Skittles.

So when criticizing President Obama for his handling of the Iranian election protests, make sure to ask him this:

PRESIDENT OBAMA, WHERE ARE THE FLYING UNICORNS?!!! I AM USING THREE EXCLAMATION POINTS BECAUSE I AM TRIPLE ANGRY. PEOPLE SAID IF YOU WERE ELECTED, YOU WOULD FLY IN ON A UNICORN AND FIX EVERYTHING. SO DO IT. LEAVE THE UNICORN HORN POLISH AT HOME—JUST GO!!!!!

Sincerely,

Charles Krauthammer

Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), mustering the great oratorical history of the U.S. Senate in his response to Obama’s call on Congress to enact health care legislation:

“Pres Obama you got nerve while u sightseeing in Paris to tell us ‘time to deliver’ on health care. We still on skedul/even workinWKEND.”

He then followed:

“Pres Obama while u sightseeing in Paris u said ‘time to delivr on healthcare’ When you are a ‘hammer’ u think evrything is NAIL I’m no NAIL.”

Grassley’s address was delivered on Twitter, the 21st century parchment and pen. While Grassley’s words may not match the Declaration of Independence, I think they rank right up there with the most famous Senate quotes, such as army attorney Joseph Welch’s challenge of Sen. McCarthy: “Have you no sense of decency, sir?” Or, as Welch said   later in  his Twitter posting: “Dude, WTF?”

Can we create a new Congress whose sole responsibility would be to pass laws affecting the current Congress? Like “No Tweeting while angry\drunk” or, better yet, “No using any Internet phone at any point ever.”

Barring that, let me provide some advice for politicians using Twitter.

1. You don’t have to misspell words. It makes you look how we secretly suspect you are. Knowing our nation’s leaders  know how to use a phone is comforting enough.

2. Ditto for writing words in all caps. It comes off as yelling, and sometimes the big letters make your words get stuck in the Internet tubes.

3. If you tweet during the President’s State of the Union address, you  are no longer allowed to complain about the declining attention spans of our nation’s youths.

Days before being nominated for Treasury secretary, Timothy Geithner figured it was time to pay $34,000 in back taxes for 2001 to 2004. Now we find out that nominee for Health and Human Services secretary Tom Daschle failed to pay $140,000 in back taxes and interest, a mistake he corrected…days before his first confirmation hearing.

I think I have a solution to the financial crisis. Nominate tax delinquents to cabinet positions.

Here’s how it works. There are 15 cabinet positions. For each position, the administration nominates 10 tax cheats and tells them in private to pay all their back taxes because he or she is the “front runner.”

After they pay their back taxes, someone leaks to the press about their tax troubles and slips Rush Limbaugh a deuce of Oxycotin. Boom–media firestorm. The administration holds a press conference: “We regret to have to withdraw the nomination of all people nominated for all positions.” Then we start over…with more tax cheats! Instant billions.

Eventually, people will figure out that nomination=tax cheat and the administration won’t even need to formally nominate someone. They can just threaten to make them Secretary of State if they don’t pony up the dough.

Unfortunately, in Obama’s quest to staff his cabinet and other high-level positions faster than any administration in history, he really screwed us over. The only cabinet position open and without a nominee is Secreatary of Commerce, and a Republican senator is rumored to be the pick.

At this critical juncture of America’s history, we cannot have an unqualified Republican Senator on Obama’s cabinet. We need an unqualified Republican billionaire. Two or three if possible. You know these guys have half-a-dozen tax shelters and as many mistresses willing to rat on them for as little as a Deputy Undersecretary position.

Take this NY Times article on the 400 richest Americans:

The top 400 paid just more than $18 billion in federal income taxes in 2006, or an average of $45 million, on a record $105 billion in total income — the lowest effective tax rate in the 15 years since the agency began releasing such data. (link)

Sounds like we have some good candidates for Commerce Secretary.