The Dems cave and give Joe Lieberman a meaningless punishment. What a surprise!
Democrats hand Joe
A tiny slap on the wrist.
Thumbs down to the Dems.
Archive for the ‘Political Haiku & Senryu’ Category
“Traitor Joe” Wasn’t Disloyal Enough? (Haiku)
Tuesday, November 18th, 2008I’m A McPalin Haiku Hysteria Finalist
Tuesday, October 21st, 2008Cool news! Nearly 4000 people submitted haiku to the McPalin Haiku Hysteria contest held by People For The American Way and The Nation Magazine. And I’m one of the twelve finalists!!! So I’d really appreciate your voting for my haiku here. The three winning haiku will be published in The Nation.
We were allowed to submit up to three haiku, and here are the three I submitted. (The first one is the haiku that made the finals.)
Palin knows nothing
About the Constitution.
Puppets don’t have to.
An anti-choice veep
Who opposes free rape kits?
Thanks, John, but no thanks.
Would Palin court picks
Destroy the Constitution?
You betcha! Wink, wink.
Ode To Corporate Vultures
Wednesday, September 24th, 2008Here’s my latest haiku (senryu) about the Wall Street meltdown and the $700 billion (or much more) Bush-Cheney-Paulson-Bernanke rip-off-the-taxpayers bailout plan:
Financial vultures
First gobble up our assets,
Then demand dessert.
Election Perspective (Haiku)
Tuesday, June 10th, 2008The primary’s done.
But the election’s far from
Secondary.[tags]Election Haiku, Primary Senryu[/tags]
McCain’s New Campaign Slogan
Saturday, April 12th, 2008John McCain has been having a tough time raising campaign money lately. So I thought I’d help out with a McCain campaign slogan haiku — gratis. Aren’t I generous?
Remember Bush’s
Humble foreign policy?
Vote McCain for more. [tags]Senator McCain, Presidential Campaign Verse[/tags]
My John “My Friends” McCain Theory
Saturday, April 5th, 2008Wow! Even Don “McCain Worshipper” Imus can’t stand it any more. I just heard Imus tell Craig Crawford:
If he says “my friends” one more time, I’m gonna kill myself.
I think it’s time for a haiku:
A candidate
Who can’t stop saying “my friends,”
Doesn’t have any.[tags]Senator McCain, Don Imus, Craig Crawford, Media Humor, Campaign Satire, Election Humor, My Friends, Presidential Election Humor[/tags]
Election ‘08 Haiku
Sunday, March 2nd, 2008U.S. middle class
Nickel-and-dimed by George Bush.
Change way overdue.
(Inspired by this change prompt. And speaking of prompts, there’s still time to participate in my limerick and haiku prompt. Its theme is walking.)
UPDATE: I just remembered another haiku I wrote about change several months ago:
“People want change,”
Claim presidential candidates.
I’d prefer twenties.[tags]Middle Class Humor, Bush Presidency, Presidential Election, George Bush Haiku, Bush Economy[/tags]
Hillary Haiku
Wednesday, January 9th, 2008“Hillary cried,”
The media lied.
Who’s crying now?[tags]Hillary Clinton Verse, Hillary Poetry, Media Humor, Campaign Satire, Election Humor[/tags]
A Liar’s Haiku
Sunday, December 30th, 2007AP calls Mitt’s lies
A “candor gap,” bypassing
Candor lacuna. [tags]Mitt Romney Satire, Candor Gap, Media Dishonesty[/tags]
Weathering Bush (Haiku)
Saturday, December 8th, 2007I shovel the snow
As Bush blares through my head phones,
Shov’ling something else.
No video today, but you can still watch this one.
(You can find more of my news haiku here.)[tags]Bush Haiku, Weather, Political Humor[/tags]
First Pakistan And Then…
Sunday, November 4th, 2007While Bush and Cheney are busily threatening World War 3 over of Iran’s potential future nuclear threat, their great nuke-possessing Pakistan pal President Gen. Pervez Musharraf has declared “emergency rule.” Are you feeling safer yet?
A pair of haiku to commemorate the occasion.
Musharraf declares
Martial law in Pakistan.
Bush lets freedom ring.
Emergency rule.
Constitution suspension.
Dick Cheney’s wet dream.
Update: Are Bush/Cheney speechwriters working for Musharraf?
Just after midnight, General Musharraf appeared on state-run television. In a 45-minute speech, he said he had declared the emergency to limit terrorist attacks and “preserve the democratic transition that I initiated eight years back.”
…He accused the country’s Supreme Court of releasing 61 men who he said were under investigation for terrorist activities. “Judicial activism,” he said, had demoralized the security forces, hurt the fight against terrorism and slowed the spread of democracy. “Obstacles are being created in the way of democratic process,” he said, “I think for vested, personal interests, against the interest of the country.”
Update 2: For more satire on the same topic, visit Don Davis’s Musharraf Suspends Constitution: Bush Gets ‘Pervez Envy.’[tags]Pakistan, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Emergency Rule, Nukes, BlogFriday, Martial Law, Nuclear Threat[/tags]
Heckofa Job, Karen!
Wednesday, October 31st, 2007So 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]
Blithe Dana
Thursday, October 25th, 2007For 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?
Unfair Censorship Of Plame’s Fair Game
Thursday, October 25th, 2007The 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]
Too Close To Call
Monday, October 22nd, 2007I’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]
SCHIP Haiku
Tuesday, October 9th, 2007At 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]
Rudy Giuliani: Bald Ego
Thursday, September 20th, 2007I don’t mean to cast aspersions on short people. (I’m only five foot zero myself.) But I have a totally unsubstantiated theory, and here it is: Republican politicians are, on average, shorter than Democratic politicians. (Can you think of a better explanation for the over-compensating machismo and braggadocio that run rampant throughout the Republican party?)
Case in point: Rudy “Bald Ego” Giuliani, who out-did himself Wednesday during his European tour:
LONDON - Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani bragged about his international celebrity Wednesday on a trans-Atlantic campaign trip in which he schmoozed with conservative idol Margaret Thatcher.
“I’m probably one of the four or five best known Americans in the world,” Giuliani told a small group of reporters at a posh London hotel as onlookers gathered in the lobby to gawk at actor Dustin Hoffman who was on a separate visit.
And that leads me to my latest haiku:
The Rudy Complex
By Madeleine Begun Kane
Giuliani brags
About how famous he is.
Like Napoleon?
So who’s ready to fund my “Are Republicans Shorter Than Democrats” study? Nobody? How about my “Are Republicans Balder Than Democrats” study? [tags]GOP Braggart, Mayor Rudy Guiliani, Overcompensation, Republican Humor, Height, Macho Politicians[/tags]
Curb Your “Age Of Turbulence” Enthusiasm
Sunday, September 16th, 2007Poor little innocent Alan Greenspan is shocked, SHOCKED, I TELL YOU, by the Bush administration’s budget deficits and loss of fiscal discipline. What a shame that the brilliant Greenspan was never in a position to do something it about it and maybe even prevent it.
Oh … wait. Never mind!
So are you planning to run out and buy Greenspan’s self-serving, history-rewriting The Age of Turbulence? 
Curb Your Age Of Turbulence Enthusiasm
By Madeleine Begun Kane
Panning fiscal acts
He once endorsed, Greenspan feigns
Bystander status. [tags]Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve Chairman, Political Memoirs, Fiscal Discipline, Bush Administration, The Age Of Turbulence, Budget Deficits, Self-serving Memoir, Innocent Bystander, U.S. Budget Humor[/tags]
