Summer '09: News Parodists Need Not Apply
Well, here we go again. Summer's over, school's started - and that's about the best you can say for any of it.
Congress comes back to town this week and is probably glad to be back.
For one thing, it should be more pleasant around here than back home, where constituents were in a foul mood and town hall meetings turned so nasty Jerry Springer could have run them unedited and no one would have noticed. Ol' Jerry wasn't even there.
Last week, the White House was putting final touches on the president's make-or-break speech to Congress on health care this Wednesday when it was blindsided by that firestorm of conservative opposition to the president's plan to speak to the nation's schoolchildren about the rewards of staying in school and off dope.
The president's poll numbers went down as unemployment figures went up again, and the news from abroad was no better.
As the war in Afghanistan took a bad turn and commanders were saying more American troops may be needed, the State Department said it had fired many of the guards at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul for holding naked pool parties.
In this year's Gridiron Show, where journalists spoof politicians, I played the role of George Bush and sang a parody song that went this way:
"Things are such a mess,
Obama's probably sitting at my desk,
Wishing HE was John McCain.
Well, looking back on the news of the summer, that's sounding more like a documentary than a parody.
