Archive for October, 2007

Heckofa Job, Karen!

Wednesday, October 31st, 2007

So Karen Hughes has resigned from her job to “promote America’s values and confront ideological support for terrorism around the world.” Hmmm.  Could she have been involuntarily slated for an assignment in Iraq? Probably not, but it’s an amusing fantasy. In any event, it’s haiku time:

Heckofa Job, Karen!
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Karen Hughes resigned
From her boost-our-image job.
Mission accomplished?

(You can find more of my Karen Hughes humor here and here.)[tags]Karen Hughes Humor, U.S. Image Problems, American Values, U.S. Dept of State[/tags]

The Poetry Of Rudy Giuliani

Tuesday, October 30th, 2007

Did you know that Rudy Giuliani is a poet?  Me neither.  So I was really surprised to unearth the poetry of Rudy Giuliani. Here are six poems I found in the Rudy Reader:

Police the skies.
Cede to lawful authority.
The era of fear.

America needs to be defended.
This is not the product of accident.
This is a business.
This is the product of design.

Freedom is about authority.
I hate to toot my own horn,
But that’s what I’m good at.

Chinese people always skinny, never fat.
Who knows why those things happen?

You have less of a chance of being murdered,
Mugged, beaten or robbed here,
Than just about any place in any large city in Texas.
Thank God George Bush is our President.
Let’s now make this kind of a permanent condition.

Yes, I’m running.
Relax and deal with it.

(Editor’s Note Regarding Rudy’s “Found Poetry”:  All the above words came out of Rudy Giuliani’s mouth, although not necessarily in the order presented. For more info about “found poetry” check out this post.)[tags]Rudy Giuliani Verse, Found Poetry, Political Humor[/tags]

Message to Obama: Hammer! Don’t Stammer!

Tuesday, October 30th, 2007

This is starting to get silly. It seems like every other day, Barack Obama promises to bolster his lagging poll numbers by changing his campaign style and getting tough on Hillary Clinton.  But even when Obama tries to challenge Hillary, his speech is so droning, so professorial, so lacking in emotion, that his “attacks” fall flat.  Hell, Obama often sounds like John Kerry on Quaaludes.

And that brings me to my Barack Obama haiku:

I’ll be more forceful
Against Hillary Clinton.
I mean it this time.

(Inspired in part by this haiku prompt. You can find more of my news haiku here.) [tags]Barack Obama Poem, Hillary Clinton, Presidential Campaign Humor, Election Humor[/tags]

Pondering Condi

Saturday, October 27th, 2007

Condi Rice’s testimony this past week, in which she belligerently defended the State Department’s work in Iraq, was her first appearance before a Democratically-controlled House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. True to form, she blamed everything but the Bush’s many administration failures for the problems in Iraq:

Rice stated that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the liberation of Iraq were worth the money and sacrifice of life. She blamed the current chaos in Iraq on the previous regime, stating the stabilizing Iraq “has been harder than we thought because we didn’t realize how broken the country was under Saddam Hussein.” 

Regarding problems with contractor oversight, Rice also shirked blame, repeatedly using a fifty-dollar word that few people even know:

In response to charges that private security firms were not held accountable for their aggressive behavior, Rice dodged responsibility by repeatedly referring to a “lacuna” or a gap in the law that prevented the contractors from being prosecuted.

Condi has inspired me to write some more-serious-than-usual verse:

Pondering Condi
By Madeleine  Begun Kane

Rice shrugs off blame
For wartime’s toll.
Poor oversight?
Rice claims a hole—
A legal “lacuna”
Impedes control
Of contractor actions
On Iraq patrol.
Must fill that lacuna—
She touts that goal.
But who will fill
The lacuna in her soul?

On a lighter note, you might enjoy the Condi song parody I wrote way back when.[tags]Condi Rice, Rice Testimony, State Department Failures, Condoleezza Rice[/tags]

Blithe Dana

Thursday, October 25th, 2007

For some reason, blithe Dana Perino’s blasé response to a question about Bush’s $2 trillion Iraq war reminded me of two things:

1. Bush’s false claims to have inherited a recession from Bill Clinton; and

2. Bush’s vow to “solve problems, not pass them on to future presidents and future generations.”

And that brings me to my latest haiku:

The White House isn’t
Concerned about the war’s cost.
Isn’t that special?

Great Journalism Quote

Thursday, October 25th, 2007

The always insightful and informative Dick Polman (who also writes for the Philadelphia Inquirer) deconstructs the history of a too-good-to-be-true Ronald Reagan “quote” about George W. Bush.  And he concludes with a wonderful old, but new-to-me, journalistic saying:

If your own mother says she loves you, check it out.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if more journalists heeded that excellent advice? 

Speaking of Ronald Reagan, is he still a saint?[tags]Journalism Quote, Ronald Reagan, GWB[/tags]

Unfair Censorship Of Plame’s Fair Game

Thursday, October 25th, 2007

The defendants in Valerie Plame Wilson’s lawsuit against the CIA for censoring her book, Fair Game, had better hope she never gets to trial.  I say that because I’ve heard her interviewed several times, and that woman will make one hell of a witness.

Moreover, asserting national security, in order to censor material that’s already in the public domain, sure sounds like revenge censorship to me.

And that brings me to my latest haiku:

Plame’s book censored by
Bush blackguards, who black out truths
Already revealed.

(You can find my Traitorgate song parody about Valerie Plame’s outing here.) [tags]Valerie Plame Wilson, Outing CIA Agent, Fair Game, Plame Censorship, Plame Lawsuit[/tags]

Disbelief

Thursday, October 25th, 2007

I watch George Bush in disbelief.
His lies have caused such strife and grief.
Please tell me why that man is still chief.

(You can find more disbelief here.)[tags]President Bush, Disbelief[/tags]

NASA Air Travel Study Cover-up

Monday, October 22nd, 2007

The AP is reporting about the latest Bush administration cover-up:

Anxious to avoid upsetting air travelers, NASA is withholding results from an unprecedented national survey of pilots that found safety problems like near collisions and runway interference occur far more frequently than the government previously recognized.

NASA gathered the information under an $8.5 million safety project, through telephone interviews with roughly 24,000 commercial and general aviation pilots over nearly four years. Since ending the interviews at the beginning of 2005 and shutting down the project completely more than one year ago, the space agency has refused to divulge the results publicly.

Just last week, NASA ordered the contractor that conducted the survey to purge all related data from its computers. …

This doesn’t surprise me.  After all, the only threats to our safety that the Bush administration wants us to know about are fictitious threats that suit Bush/Cheney’s warmongering purposes.[tags]NASA, Air Travel Safety, Bush Administration Cover-Up[/tags]

Shorter Michael Mukasey

Monday, October 22nd, 2007

Here’s how I’d sum up Attorney General nominee Mike Mukasey’s Senate Judiciary Committee testimony about torture, waterboarding, and the U.S. Constitution:

Torture: Bad

Tortured Language: Good[tags]Michael Mukasey, Attorney General Nominee, Torture & Waterboarding Satire[/tags]

Too Close To Call

Monday, October 22nd, 2007

I’ve recently discovered the huge community of blogger-poets, many of whom make creative use of poetry prompts. Basically, inspirational poetry prompts are posted at a regular time and place, giving whoever chooses to use them a jumping off point for … whatever.

The prompt can be just about anything — a word or three or five, a photo, or even another poem.  And it’s often fascinating to see where any given prompt takes twenty, thirty or even several dozen individual poets.

I tend to post the fruit of those prompts on my non-political humor blog. But my latest haiku, inspired by the prompt “closeness” is way too political to land anywhere but here.  (Needless to say, my fellow poets took their verse in a rather less cynical direction.) 

“It’s too close to call,”
When said of elections, means
“Close enough to steal.”

(If you’re interested in poetry prompts, here are some blogs that regularly post them: Blog Friday; Haiku: One Deep Breath; Inspire Me Thursday; Little Nibbler; Miss Rumphius Effect; Poefusion; Poetic Asides; Sunday Scribblings; Totally Optional Prompts; and Weekend Wordsmith.)

UPDATE: I’m now posting limerick and haiku prompts on a weekly basis on my other blog.[tags]Closeness, Close Elections, Poem Prompts, Poetry Prompts[/tags]

Methinks Bush Doth Be Defensive (Haiku)

Thursday, October 18th, 2007

If I’m ever reduced to pronouncing myself “relevant,” please, I’m begging you, put me out of my misery:

George Bush feels the need
To brag that he’s relevant.
What would Shakespeare say?[tags]George Bush Relevant, Bush Humor[/tags]

Pondering Rudy

Wednesday, October 17th, 2007

I live in New York City, so I’m pretty familiar with the pros and cons of Rudy Giuliani. And yes, there are pros.  What pros?  Well, Rudy does love opera.

And as ornery, self-centered, and first amendment-hating as Rudy was during his New York City Mayor years, he never struck me as being insane. Yet his current outsized hawkishness does seem … well … crazy. So I can’t help wondering whether Rudy’s crazed warmongering is real or a ruse.  (Not that I want to find out, of course.)

Pondering Rudy (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Rudy acts like a war-loving crank.
Is his hawkishness feigned, else he’ll tank
As Republicans see
That he doesn’t agree
With most of the GOP plank?[tags]Rudy Giuliani Humor, GOP Hawks, New York City Mayors[/tags]

Ode To Ann (ti-Semite) Coulter

Thursday, October 11th, 2007

We can now add anti-Semitism to the list of Ann Coulter’s charming qualities.

Ode To Ann (ti-Semite) Coulter
By Madeleine Begun Kane

In Ann’s perfect world
There would be no Jews—
Just “perfected Christians.”
Is it malice or booze?

In Mad’s perfect world
There would be no views
Of Ann Coulter’s ravings
On the TV news.

(Note: I know I promised I’d never utter Ann Coulter’s name again, but I couldn’t help myself.) [tags]Ann Coulter, Anti-Semitism, TV News, Perfected Christians, Media Humor[/tags]

The GOP’s Evolving Policy On Lawyers

Wednesday, October 10th, 2007

Can you imagine the reaction if a Democratic candidate made a Mitt Romney type consult the lawyers before launching a war remark?  Republicans wouldn’t be guilty of a double standard, would they?

First Kill All The Lawyers (Republican Policy)

First Consult All The Lawyers (Mitt Romney Policy)

First Kill All The Democrat Lawyers (Revised Republican Policy)

(You can find more of my legal humor here.) [tags]Mitt Romney, Legal Humor, Republicans & Lawyers, GOP & Attorneys, Debate Humor, GOP Hypocrisy[/tags]

SCHIP Haiku

Tuesday, October 9th, 2007

At long last, the real reason George W. Bush vetoed SCHIP:

SCHIP HAIKU
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Bush vetoed S-CHIP
Cuz he had a better plan:
No Child Left Alive.

(You can find more of my health humor here.) 

Update:
Ayn Clouter seasons
Her blog with parody poems,
Inspiring laughter.

Why did I post a haiku about Ayn Clouter?  Because she responded to my SCHIP haiku with some haiku of her own. [tags]SCHIP Humor, Children’s Health Insurance Plan[/tags]

Is Rove’s Loyalty Roving?

Monday, October 8th, 2007

How amusing! Karl Rove wants to be remembered for something more than just being the “Brain” of the worst President in U.S. history:

But even the cog does not want to be identified solely by his ties to the president. He knows he will go down in history as Bush’s “architect,” but he thinks he can expand his identity beyond just that. “It’s not like my life from here forward is going to be defined by it,” he said. “I have a chance to create something else. I’m not just going to be typecast as, ‘Oh, that’s the Bush guy.'”

Is Karl Rove’s Loyalty Roving? (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

Rove’s rep is atrocious, of course.
Being known just for Bush is a source
Of embarrassment, true.
Is he starting to rue
It and suffer from seller’s remorse?

The answer to my “seller’s remorse” question is “probably not.” My guess is Rove’s huge ego will never let him admit to himself that he bet on (and sold) the wrong horse.

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And now some links, for your reading (and viewing) pleasure:
* The Torture Advice Column, By ‘Devil’s Advocate’
* Carnival Of Satire
* Carnival of the Liberals
* Carnival of the Insanities
* Carnival of Political Punditry
* Carnival of Principled Government [tags]Karl Rove, President Bush[/tags]