Believe it or not, an entire decade has passed since the turn of the Millennium. As we are painfully aware, much ugly stuff occurred during the decade, but what with all the mayhem and turmoil, you might think nothing worth laughing about went down. You'd be wrong. So, here it is: a list of the Top 10 Comedic News Stories of the First Decade of the 21st Century. And not a Paris Hilton or Somali pirate sighting among them.
Kerry-Edwards '04: Worst campaign ever. And that includes France in '39. Who would have thought Democrats would fondly reminisce about the charismatic Gore-Lieberman ticket?
The Clintons: He got $12 million for his memoirs. She got $8 million for hers. Not bad for two people who testified under oath for eight years that they couldn't remember a single thing.
Economic Bubbles BurstinG: Dot com. Energy. Housing. Summed up best by the Enron Ethics manual on eBay whose seller described it as being in "mint condition, never used." That could have been the problem.
John McCain: Old warhorse finally gets his shot. Then couldn't remember how many houses he owned. Turns out he had eight. Every time I get four houses I trade them in for a hotel.
Political sex scandals: Vitter. Foley. Edwards. Ensign. Sanford. And Spitzer, the N.Y. governor who flew a hooker from New York to D.C., because God knows there aren't enough hookers in D.C. Put her up at the Mayflower and gave her four grand. That's a liberal. A conservative will try to get it for free in an airport men's room stall. Demonstrating fiscal responsibility.
Barack Obama: Half-black president demonstrates America ready to be Afro-curious. People still freaking out. "Born in Kenya." No, he wasn't. He was born in Honolulu. In a manger.
Weapons of Mass Destruction: President Bush was misled into thinking Iraq had WMDs because he was provided with faulty intelligence. Turns out it wasn't Iraq with the WMD, it wasn't Iraq with ties to al-Qaida: it was Iran. We were so close. Probably just a clerical error.
Dick CheneY: Accidentally shot a guy in the face with a gun and got the victim to apologize. Then again, who among us hasn't mistaken a 78-year-old lawyer wearing an orange vest for an immense quail?
Sarah Palin: For those of us going cold turkey on George Bush, the former governor of Alaska is like a double dose of methadone.
George W. Bush: A Wheel of Fortune President in a Jeopardy world. For eight wonderful years, he was the Full Employment Act for political comedy. And we welcome him back.
• San Francisco-based political comic Will Durst, who writes sometimes, fully expects the next decade to be as fertile, material-wise.
Comments
Use the comment form below to begin a discussion about this content.
Sign in to comment