I usually ignore Sarah Palin’s language-mangling. But her “refudiate” the “Ground Zero Mosque” Twitter “tweet” is too priceless not to comment on:
Refudiating Sarah (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane
Dear Sarah, it’s time to rebootiate
And to malapropism “refudiate.”
Cuz your incorrect usage
Is language abusage.
Either learn to speak English, or mutiate.
Update: This is too funny: Sarah Palin excuses her malapropisms and accidental word coinages by comparing herself to William Shakespeare.
Republicans have a cute little “deficit hawk” scam going: They “block extended aid to the unemployed, while simultaneously pushing for massive tax cuts for the wealthy.”
How do they justify this? According to Republican leaders like Mike Pence and Jon Kyl, the former has to be offset by spending cuts, but the latter, due to some mysterious mix of magic and voodoo, doesn’t.
It’s time for a new limerick:
The GOP’s Honesty Deficit
By Madeleine Begun Kane
Though the GOP deficit hawks
Are famed for “must pay for it” squawks,
They nix plugging the hole
Caused by tax cuts. How droll!
Yes, that’s how hypocrisy talks.
So far, Senator David Vitter of Louisiana has survived several scandals ranging from soliciting a prostitute from the “D.C. Madam,” to keeping a “women’s issues” aide (Brent Furer) on staff who allegedly held his girlfriend hostage at knifepoint.
But now he’s confronting a brand new challenge — a last minute, unexpected primary fight launched by retired Judge Chet Traylor.
And that brings me to my latest two-verse limerick:
David Vitter’s Traylor Travails
By Madeleine Begun Kane
The scandal-scarred Senator Vitter
Got struck with a last minute hitter:
A primary fight
From the GOP’s right.
Now he’s bitter. I read it on Twitter.
Chet Traylor has pulled off this filing,
And bus’nesses find him beguiling—
Former judge who’s a fan
Of the sodomy ban.
And that’s why Dave Vitter ain’t smiling.
Americans gaze at the sky
On a hot, muggy 4th of July,
Watching fireworks flash
At a flag-waving bash—
A brief respite from life gone awry.
Way back in 1999, President Bill Clinton nominated a brilliant lawyer for a seat on the federal appeals court based in the District of Columbia.
Alas, that lawyer never got to the D.C. bench. Indeed, the brilliant nominee never even got to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
You see, the lawyer suffered from a fatal flaw — she’d been named by a Democratic President, and her appointment would shift the balance of a very important court. So Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, blocked her nomination, refusing to schedule a hearing.
Disappointed but undaunted, the brilliant lawyer pursued other legal opportunities over the years and achieved great success.
More than a decade after this ill-fated nomination, the federal bench beckoned once again. But this time it was a nomination to the highest court of the land.
Getting a hearing wasn’t a problem this time. A hearing where Senator Hatch and his fellow Republicans would look askance at the brilliant lawyer, complaining she lacked the very judicial experience they had denied her.
Who was that brilliant lawyer? Elena Kagan.
And now you know… the rest of the story.
Related Posts: Robin Ghivan Makes Me Cross, Why I’ll Never Be A Supreme Court Justice, Leery About Elena, and Obama’s What???
Harry Reid sure caught a lucky break Tuesday: Nevada’s looniest would-be Senator won the Republican nomination. Yes, Senator Reid’s opponent will be the wingnutty Sharron Angle, a woman with views so odd, she almost manages to make Rand Paul look semi-normal.
Nevada’s Wingnut Angle (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane
Harry’s hopes for November looked bleak,
With Republican odds at their peak.
But he’ll easily wrangle
The wacky Ms. Angle.
Thank you, wingnuts, for picking a freak.
It turns out that Mark Kirk’s problems with the truth go well beyond exaggerating his military resume. As the Chicago Sun-Times reports, the Illinois Republican nominee for U.S. Senate has a habit of telling international tall tales about Iranian oil imports, France’s handling of pirates, and the China-drilling-for-oil-off-the-Cuban-coast fable.
Are these deliberate lies? Or is Mark Kirk woefully ill-informed? I’m not sure, but neither explanation would speak well of a would-be senator who’s ostensibly an expert in foreign affairs.
That brings me to my latest limerick:
Kirk’s “Factual” Quirks
By Madeleine Begun Kane
Mark Kirk is astoundingly lax
When he spouts international “facts.”
Be it China or France
Or Iranian rants,
He’s deceptive and wrong to the max.
Okay, so we have two Senatorial candidates who’ve pumped up their military records — Republican Mark Kirk of Illinois and Democrat Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. We also have the horrified Republican Senator Orrin Hatch, who’s hatched the upright-sounding Stolen Valor Act. Just one problem: According to Hatch, it would criminalize Blumenthal’s behavior but (surprise, surprise) not Kirk’s.
Hatching Hypocrisy (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane
When a pol says he fought for our land
And exaggerates, bolst’ring his brand,
That’s a crime, says Sen Hatch.
But of course there’s a catch:
Only Dems need obey this command.
Update: One of my few Republican Facebook friends, Rob Hood, posted a limerick response in Facebook asserting that I engage in anti-GOP gloating. Here’s my limerick rejoinder:
I’m a Dem, but I’m surely not gloating.
There’s no reason for happy emoting.
Though the GOP’s worse
Than the Dems, here’s our curse:
Most pols do not merit our voting.
Is speculation that Sarah Palin’s speaking career’s starting to crash and burn just wishful thinking, or something more? One thing’s for sure — her Las Vegas keynote speech didn’t impress commercial realtors.
Panning Palin
By Madeleine Begun Kane
I never “got” Palin’s appeal.
I’m confused. Please do tell. What’s the deal?
Ill-informed and quite crass,
With a voice that breaks glass —
Why on earth would folks pay for her spiel?
Alert the authorities: U.S. Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan has “embraced dowdy as a mark of brainpower.” Moreover, unlike “most women” she doesn’t cross her legs when she’s sitting.
Yes, Washington Post columnist Robin Ghivan is at it again with her sexist political fashion drivel. (I still haven’t recovered from Ghivan’s column about Hillary Clinton’s cleavage.)
Well here’s a news flash for Ms. Ghivan: Any grown woman with half a brain knows that crossing your legs is both uncomfortable and unhealthy. But hey, if you want varicose veins go right ahead.
Robin Ghivan Makes Me Cross (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane
If you care about good circulation
And prefer that your feet have sensation,
Then you don’t cross your legs.
Givhan’s column’s the dregs.
Sexist nonsense is Robin’s fixation.
In the wake of his humiliating interview on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show, Rand Paul has a serious Civil Rights Act problem. It’s so bad, that he’s already flip-flopping (or pretending to flip-flop) over his views and he was even scared into canceling his scheduled Meet the Press interview.
But Rand Paul isn’t the only guy with a problem — his fellow Republican pols have one too. What do I mean? Well, eventually they’ll have to choose sides: Either stick up for the Republican nominee with the insane views and maintain party loyalty, or disavow Rand Paul’s views and be seen by many as disloyal to the GOP. Good luck with that.
This brings me to my latest three-verse limerick:
Republican Pols — Off or On the Rand-Wagon?
By Madeleine Begun Kane
The Sen. nominee known as Rand
Is as odd as they come in this land.
He says cos are endowed
With this right: All’s allowed.
Paul would give them a fully free hand.
If they want to be racist, they may.
Block the Jews from their doors? That’s okay.
Cuz the gospel of Paul
Is no biz regs at all.
So feel free to go fire a gay.
The Republican leaders must choose
To decry (or endorse) these mad views.
There is no in-between.
There’s no hiding, I mean.
Back the Tea Party Guy, and they lose.
Would you like to dump the Department of Education and the Federal Reserve?
Do you believe there’s “collusion between government and industry in the global warming myth”?
Do you think the U.S. should adopt “Austrian Economics,” abrogate the “UN Treaty on Rights of the Child” and the “Law Of The Sea Treaty” and resist “efforts to create a one world government”?
Then do I have a Republican Party Platform for you:
Maine Mishigas (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane
The Republican Party of Maine
Has apparently gone quite insane.
It has managed to fill
Its new platform with swill.
What an odd way to run a campaign.
But citizens tend to ignore
Party platforms — they’re often a bore.
So Dems, spread the word
Re this platform absurd.
Cuz (if known) it has little allure.
Note: I suppose a crazy party platform should be expected from people who’d behave like this while they’re adopting it:
The Republican State Convention was held at the Portland Exposition Building, which is on Park Avenue, near the middle school. Party members from Knox County caucused in a classroom used by eighth-grade social studies teacher Paul Clifford.
When Clifford returned to school on Monday, he found that a favorite poster about the U.S. labor movement had been taken and replaced with a bumper sticker that read, “Working People Vote Republican.”
Later, Clifford learned that his classroom had been searched. Republicans who had attended the convention called Principal Mike McCarthy to complain about “anti-American” things they saw there, including a closed box containing copies of the U.S. Constitution that were published by the American Civil Liberties Union.
You’d think that, in the wake of the BP Gulf oil disaster, raising oil spill liability limits would be a no-brainer, even for Republicans. But apparently not. Just ask Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who blocked the Menendez-Nelson-Lautenberg “Oil Company Bailout Prevention Act,” a bill that would increase the liability cap for oil spills from $75 million to $10 billion.
Oily Obstruction (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane
Liability caps for a spill
Would be raised by the Democrats’ bill.
But Sen. Lisa says “No!”
She’s protecting each co
That drills oil, despite all that they kill.
They’d be hurt by such law, she maintains.
Such indifference to other folks’ pains!
Who will cover the bills
For the victims of spills?
It seems oil cos have Lisa in chains.
As the Washington Post’s Valerie Strauss points out, the U.S. Supreme Court is packed with graduates of Harvard Law and Yale Law:
Assuming President Obama wins confirmation of Solicitor General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, that august body will be exclusively filled with judges who earned their law degrees at Harvard or Yale.
Strauss thinks such exclusivity is a bad idea and, as you can tell from this limerick, so do I:
Why I’ll Never Be A Supreme Court Justice
By Madeleine Begun Kane
It appears that Supremes have to hail
From the law schools of Harvard or Yale.
My law school’s St. John’s.
That’s just one of my “cons.”
Plus I’m sixty — I might as well bail.
Bob Newhart Names Mad Kane Winner of 2008 Robert Benchley Society Award For Humor
Mad Kane is a writer, musician, and "recovering lawyer." As you may have noticed, she enjoys writing song parodies, limericks, and current events haiku.
You can email her at madkane@madkane.com, visit her non-political humor blog, or stop by her home page.
Haley’s Barbaric Attitude
June 8th, 2010While Govs. Bobby Jindal (R-La.), Charlie Crist (I-Fla.), and Bob Riley (R-Ala.) seem to take the Gulf oil spill crisis very seriously, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) has been downplaying the disaster, talking as if it’s a fictitious crisis created by the media.
For instance, according to Barbour, “tar balls are no big deal.”
That brings me to my latest limerick:
Haley’s Barbaric Attitude
By Madeleine Begun Kane
Don’t worry, be happy, says Haley,
In spite of the news we get daily.
Just ignore the press squeal.
The spill’s no big deal.
Must be nice to view crises so gaily.
Related Post: Oily Obstruction
Tags: Bob Riley, Bobby Jindal, BP, Charlie Crist, Environment, Gulf Of Mexico, Haley Barbour, Media Humor, Mississippi, Oil Disasters, Tourism
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