Author Topic: The Dept of Satire - DOS  (Read 933 times)

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The Dept of Satire - DOS
« on: November 24, 2008, 12:58:37 PM »
Obama Reveals Plans For A Department of Satire   
Written by Steve Young      
Monday, 24 November 2008
A Steve Young exclusive: it'll be like having The Daily Show without the expense of cable!

November 24, 2008 – Hollywood (SteveYoungOnPolitics / apj.us) –

The Obama transition team has indicated the possibility of a dramatic, yet witty change from the status quo. There is serious talk of developing a Department of Satire to meant to deal with the growing amount of absurdities that affect the world today.

“It’s an obvious move that’s time has come,” said National Lampoon creative director, Scott Rubin. “Different from the previous administration, if this one is going to be a laughing-stock they want to do it on purpose. The economy has been a joke. So has the response to it. The housing market, Wall Street, terrorism. They could all use some lightning up. Just handling Vice President Biden’s gaffes alone will take a hefty writing team.”

The plan is for the DOS to field all questions and issues, no matter the gravity, that demand a creative response.

“We’ll be supplying our press secretaries with seeming ad-libs and playful comebacks,” said DOS sidekick, Hank Kingsley. “Hey, now. We certainly don’t expect for this to be an office that simply throws puns and double entendres at the difficulties we face. If we’re going to utilize a joke - in the strictest sense - we would hope that it more favors Stephen Wright than it does Carrot Top. Otherwise it will all be irony and clever spoofs.”

This wouldn’t be the first time an administration has enlisted satire. Many consider the George H. Bush’s term-long spoof that had many believing that Dan Quayle was actually the country’s vice-president to be the best farce pulled off by an administration since Lincoln’s bulls-eye-taped-to-his-back joke gone horribly astray.

“The decision to allow Lieberman to hold onto his Senate chairmanship is the first decision handed down by the DOS, but don’t expect every response to be absurd,” said Kingsley. “We’ll leave that up to Bill O’Reilly. We’re just trying to lighten up the hard times ahead while at the same time, make some thoughtful observations that Will Rodgers or Britt Hume would be proud of.”

“Satire isn’t a joke,” said one of Sacha Baron Cohen’s characters. “It’s more of a clever comment may or may not illicit a chuckle from revealing the absurdity of a person, place or thing.”

“Regrettably, the explanation of what is satire is certainly not funny,” he added.

As of yet, no Secretary of Satire has been named, but those rumored under consideration include Stephen Colbert, Samantha Bee and William Kristol.

“Kristol is either a long shot or just a gag the Obama people threw in to screw with us,” said web satirist, Andy Borowitz. “Either way, it’s pretty funny.”

 

 

Steve Young is Webmaster of Steve Young on Politics, author of "Great Failures of the Extremely Successful" and his "All the News That's Fit to Spoof" appears on the LA Daily News Op-Ed page every Sunday… to the left of Bill O'Reilly's column… really!

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