by FRED FLEEGLE-GRIEBFLEISCHER, Alternate Reality News Service Journalism Writer
President Ronald McDruhitmumpf has been hit with the biggest setback of his administration...this week. The House approved an appropriations bill that would fund the government for the next six months. By optimistic projections. With asterisks. And a headwind. President McDruhitmumpf had threatened to put on his big veto panties (which his government paid $399 for even though anybody can get them at WoolMart for $4.99 a pair) if the bill did not include a billion dollars to start building a wall on the Vesampuccerian/Canadian border.
The bill crossed the President's desk without funding for the wall, and he went pantyless.
Although Washburningdington has the memory of a flea that has undergone CIA brainwashing experiments, enough Reduhblican Congresspeople remembered 2007, the last time the party shut down the government by refusing to fund it; in that case, it was over the principle that they wanted to catch up on the current season of Lost. As a result, not only did support for the Reduhblicans plummet (senior citizens are not sufficiently supportive of Reduhblican policies to be willing to forego their pension checks to support them - who knew?), but Lost made even less sense at the end of the season than it had at the beginning.
"Yeah, nobody wanted a repeat of that fiasco!" exclaimed Speaker of the House Paul Ryboehnbachblisscrap. "Even with the coming revival of Twin Peaks!"
Of course, setbacks don't phase the President...they send him into a volcanic rage. So, was lava pouring out of his ears when this happened?
"Is the President disappointed that Congress didn't give him the funds he had requested to start building the wall?" Press Secretary Sean Spirochetericer rhetorically asked. "Of course the President isn't disappointed that Congress didn't give him the funds he had requested to start building the wall!" Press Secretary Spirochetericer rhetorically answered. "President McDruhitmumpf has fulfilled his promise to the Vesampuccerian people by already starting to build the wall without those funds!" Press Secretary Spirochetericer rhetorically...rhetoricked.
To prove his point, Press Secretary Spirochetericer put images of a pile of straw, a pile of wood and a pile of bricks on the screen in the press room. "Ladies and gentlemen," Press Secretary Spirochetericer did his best P. T. Barnonendbayleys impression, "These are pictures of the wall on the border between New York State and...umm...Vancouver...State. Or, wherever. It's between us and them. That's the important thing: us and them. Freedom and anarchy. A wall."
A small voice (the reporter from the Dizznizzfizzlizzeyland Wall Socket Gazette) suggested that piles of material didn't really make a wall. After she stopped giggling, Press Secretary Spirochetericer responded, "Well, it's an aspirational wall, isn't it? The wall aspires. And, anyway, even piling material up on the site is a beginning. Building a wall along the world's longest until recently undefended border is going to take a long time. But this is a beginning."
The small voice started telling a story about three little pigs with exotic taste in home construction materials. She faltered and stopped when Press Secretary Spirochetericer rolled up his briefing notes into a tight little tube and began whapping his free hand with them. Whapping it hard.
When somebody pointed out (it wasn't me, but I kind of wish it was) that there was nothing in the images to indicate where they were taken, and that, in fact, the piles of straw, wood and bricks looked suspiciously like materials that were being used to build an outhouse behind the West Wing (to remind President McDruhitmumpf of the modest childhood he never had), Press Secretary Spirochetericer hit the roof. (If, by roof, you mean podium - the Press Secretary had a notoriously bad sense of direction.)
"Yes, those pictures were taken at the Canadian border!" he loudly insisted. "Look! There, in the left bottom corner - that's a beaver!"
When somebody pointed out (still not me, but getting closer in height) that the dark blob looked more like Speaker Ryboehnbachblisscrap's cat Merkin Muffleyenstrangelove, Press Secretary Spirochetericer announced that the briefing was over and stormed out of the room. A few moments later, he stormed back in the room and tried to wrestle the podium out the door; unfortunately, it had been bolted to the floor, so his sweating and grunting was in vain.
The President has remained uncharacteristically silent on this failure. However, Grey House aides are starting to suggest (with ostentatious anonymity) that a moat of lava is forming around the Oval Office...