We all have our holiday habits, and one of mine is to have some fun writing the occasional spoof — a habit I was alarmed to learn I share with Sen. Roland Burris, who this week in his prosodically-challenged healthcare rendition of Clement Clark Moore’s famous Christmas poem saw fit to rhyme “leader Reid” with “our hour of need.” That’s pretty much the tenor of an era in which politics is right now exalting self-parody into the law of the land, not to mention the direction of U.S. foreign policy. With Mao Tse-tung’s visage bedecking an ornament on the White House Christmas tree, what’s left to say?
I tried anyway, first drafting a tale of Santa’s rounds. But gone are the halcyon days when free-market types like myself could still imagine St. Nick hooking up with Adam Smith for such pipsqueak stuff as stopping airline bailouts. (Blast from the past — you could still have fun with that in 2001 ). Today, it’s obvious, for instance, that Santa some years out will not be delivering presents at all. As an overweight, self-employed globe-trotter, with a workshop pushing out carbon dioxide at the North Pole, he’ll spend all his time dickering with the IRS, hiding from the Environmental Protection Agency and waiting in line for state-required end-of-life healthcare counseling. Presents will be selected and distributed by a White House Shopping Czar, in tandem with breathing rights, as a function of how craftily your senator sold his vote in the latest DC power grab. It was all so gloomy that I threw it out.
Instead, I settled for writing up an alternative Christmas gift catalog, offering some gems of recent times — United Nations Sanctions on Iran (the Boxed Set); the Complete Copenhagen Climate Collection (with polar bear suits). Here’s a link if you’re in mood to browse the rest. As always with Pandora’s Christmas Hamper, there is some light (let’s skip the “hope” for now) at the bottom of the box, as in the Rescue Kit at the end. Merry Christmas to all!
Merry Christmas, Claudia. Thanks for keeping us informed. It takes a tough cookie to deal with UN blather day in and day out. You certainly deserve an extra eggnog on Christmas.
Unfortunately, it’s all too easy this year to spoof Washington. But as you note, the downside is that even doing so is horribly depressing.
But here’s one anyway:
It’s beginning to look a lot like Russia
Ev’rywhere you go;
Take a look on the Senate floor, glistening with even more
Backroom deals and silver bribes aglow!
It’s beginning to look a lot like Russia,
Pork in ev’ry law,
But the prettiest sight to see is the bacon that will be
In your own state’s maw.
A pair of Medicare bribes and a blizzard or two
Was the wish of Nelson and Reid.
An outright repeal of the pro-life Hyde deal
Is the hope the Democrat’s seed.
And Liberty is crying as they do their dirty deed.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Russia
Everywhere you go.
Mao is hanging on Barry’s tree;
The Senate wants health care free
For every voting Democratic ho (ho ho!)
It’s beginning to look a lot like Russia,
Soon the bells will toll.
Our economy’s in the tank,
As our deficit breaks the bank.
The Democrats are really on a roll!
It’s beginning to look a lot like Russia
Soon the bells will start.
And the thing that will make them ring
Is the greed that’s found within every Blue Dog heart.
Merry Christmas!