The Year Ahead....

The beginning of a new year prompts two activities--predicting the events of the year to come, and generating resolutions generally to be undermined in the coming months by will and gumption insufficient to the Puritanical fervor in which those resolutions were made.


I'm way short of Puritanical fervor these days, so, that leaves predictions. Here, too, the pitfall is personal. Anyone who believes he can see into the future, to any extent more precisely than generalizing from conventional wisdom and known facts, is likely taking himself far too seriously to be taken seriously. Since I understand quite well that I'm not the sort of person to be taken seriously, that leaves predictions of the sort that might happen, given the currently weird state of affairs in this country.

January, 2008....


As the opening session of the Senate is gaveled to order, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell begins to emit shimmering heat waves, his outer skin begins to split and peel, revealing beneath it a tough, leathery reptilian covering layered in blue-green scales. A spiked Stegosaurian tail appears below the opening of his right pants leg. A staffer is heard to remark that "his breath always did smell faintly of road kill." The next day, William Kristol says, in his new capacity as a New York Times columnist, that "this is probably good for Republicans and traditional conservatism in general."

Two weeks later....

Mitt Romney appears at a New Hampshire town hall meeting in a skin-tight Spandex and spangles dinosaur suit, and repeatedly affirms his loyalty to traditional conservatism.

February, 2008....

Lagging in the polls, Rudy! Giuliani's staff prompts him to be more personal in his campaigning. "The mayor just hasn't been kissing enough babies!," moaned one advisor. On Valentine's Day, in Orlando, Florida, Rudy! takes his staffers' advice and seizes an eight-month-old girl from her mother's arms. Videotape verifies that Giuliani hesitates momentarily, as if deciding on which cheek to kiss the child, then plunges his teeth into little Beverly Branmuffin's left carotid artery. Staffers immediately separate Rudy!, the girl and her hysterical mother at the first sign of blood.

A week later....

A freak storm with 70-mph winds hits Washington, D.C., and Trent Lott, dashing from his limousine to his unofficial, not-yet-legally-sanctioned lobbying office, suddenly, despite the best of retainers, loses his hairpiece to the raging wind. Passers-by were astonished by the transformation. Ms. Marilyn Swoop, a secretary in the Rayburn Building, offers, "nobody'd pay any attention to him t'all without that rug. I've seen more attractive doorknobs."

The former Senator's necessary accessory was recovered, slightly worse for wear, by a Mexican gardener in the employ of the well-known socialite Mrs. Winnie Bakelite of McLean, Virginia, as he was shoveling snow from her driveway. Mr. Ruiz remarks, "a good thing he had his name and phone number stitched into the netting, yes?"

March, 2008....

Amateur photographer and ardent President-watcher, Walter Effstopp, captures George Bush sodomizing a chicken on the Truman balcony of the White House at noon on Easter Sunday, using a Nikon F, an 800mm lens and Kodachrome slide film with a daylight UV filter. Copies of the pictures begin circulating on the internet a few hours later. Two shots show the Vice President holding the chicken immobile, preventing its escape. The photographs, due to limitations of the film's resolution, do not confirm, as some suggest, that the VP holds a snubnose .38 to the chicken's head.

Bush's press secretary, Dana Perino, asked about the incident at the gaggle the next Monday morning, declaims, somewhat snippily, "no, I haven't asked the President about this matter. His personal life is his own business." Fred Hiatt, editorial editor for The Washington Post, writes on the following Tuesday, "ultimately, this will be good for Republicans."

April, 2008....

On Income Tax Day, April 15th, former Speakers of the House Dennis Hastert and Newt Gingrich both spontaneously combust at their respective homes in Illinois and Georgia. Spokespersons for the two former heads of the House of Representatives will not speculate about the relationship of the explosions to tax filings, and make vague statements about "body mass‌ indexes" and "high caloric values."

President Bush celebrates Arbor Day by chasing reporters around the Rose Garden on a riding lawnmower.

May, 2008....

On the fifth anniversary of George Bush's carrier landing, the White House calls an emergency press conference to announce that the President has, under his War Powers Act authority, ordered massive air attacks on Iran. Planes and cruise missiles from the carrier groups Eisenhower, Nimitz, Constellation and Ronald Reagan, in concert with Air Force fighters and bombers from the U.S.'s bases in Qatar and Diego Garcia, will fly over 3000 bombing sorties in the next three days, expending more bombs than have been dropped on Iraq and Afghanistan combined in the last six years. When asked by the horrified White House corps for a motive, Bush offers his trademark smirk and replies, "sometimes you gotta get down an' boogahloo with the cock-a-doodle-doo."

Sen. Harry Reid and Speaker Nancy Pelosi issue a joint statement which reads, in part, "we're still trying to figure out the meaning of that last phrase."

Eighteen hours later, the Kremlin issues a statement claiming that four hundred Russian engineers and technicians are killed or injured in the bombing of the reactor at Bushehr, Iran, that Russia has filed a formal complaint with the U.N. Security Council and that Vladimir Putin, Kremlin officials and representatives of the Duma were in conference, determining the possibility and nature of a military response. The lead news story of NBC, CBS, Fox News and CNN is that sonograms may indicate that Jamie Spears' unborn child may have two heads.

A week later, Mr. Bush signs an executive order stating that all registered Democrats must wear two left shoes when in public. The order authorizes all Federal agencies to enforce the order by detention until compliance is achieved.

June, 2008....

Mike Huckabee, once a front-runner in the race for the Republican nomination for President, suddenly realizes that his chances are nil and commits suicide while on a campaign stop at a Burger King in San Saba, Texas, by Whopper.

Miraculously, he is resurrected three days after the interment, and, arms extended, begins to rise into the heavens, but at an altitude of about 60,000 feet, his body goes into free fall, reaching terminal velocity shortly afterwards, finally crashing into the marble ceiling of his burial crypt at 220 mph, three minutes and twenty-three seconds later.

David Broder writes in The Washington Post that the event will be very good for bipartisanship.

A week later, Mitt Romney ingests six pounds of fine French truffles and three pounds of escargot in fifty-two minutes in his own attempt at death, resurrection and nomination.

George Bush visits Israel and the West Bank. The Third Intifada begins.

July, 2008....

Since it is his last year in office, George Bush goes to Crawford, Texas, for a two-month summer vacation. He and Dick Cheney spend the first two weeks of vacation eating hot dogs and Pringles, drinking Jim Beam and playing "Risk." By the middle of July, they are reduced to trading Beavis and Butthead taglines ("heh, you said, 'dick.'" "Heh, you said, 'bush.'")

Laura Bush is treated at Providence Health Center in Waco for birdshot wounds to the backside, and released a day later.

Cheney is seen by reporters wandering around the barn at Prairie Chapel Ranch in a chemical-biological-radiological hazard suit.

Russia bombs Camp Victory in Iraq.


August, 2008....

On August 6th, the President's daily intelligence brief informs Bush that Ayman al-Zawahiri, the spiritual leader of al-Qaeda, is vacationing with his family at Disney World. Bush remarks to the briefer, "too bad Jeb isn't still governor of Florida."

Bush attends twenty-eight Republican fundraisers in twelve days and tells the same Michael Moore joke at each one. Flying to one of these fundraisers, lack of maintenance causes an engine to fall off of Air Force One over Barstow, California, destroying the pickup of an itinerant farmworker family.

The Democratic National Convention convenes in Denver, Colorado. After three days of caucusing, none of the eight candidates receives more than 23% of the delegates. Deadlocked, party insiders reach out to a dark horse unity ticket, Joe Lieberman and Mike Bloomberg.

September, 2008....

The Republican National Convention begins in Minneapolis-St. Paul on the 1st, which is Labor Day. This irony prompts much laughter on the convention floor.

George Bush remains in Crawford, Texas, supervising the bombing of Siberia.

Dick Cheney has his fifth (sixth?) heart attack, and, as a last resort, is fitted with a plutonium238-powered mechanical heart designed by Bill Frist. The unit fails completely after four hours, but Cheney continues to recuperate.

October, 2008....

The Republican nominee, Tom DeLay, and his running mate, Tom Cruise, promise to bring honor and integrity back to the Oval Office. Democratic contenders Joe Lieberman and Mike Bloomberg counter this assertion with, "us, too."

George Bush is seen wandering the halls of the White House in the early morning hours, telling jokes to the portraits of previous presidents.

Russia bombs Puerto Rico.

November, 2008....

Of course, the big day in November is Election Day. Throughout the day, it's apparent that turnout to the polls is at an all-time low. Democrats complain that voting machine problems, combined with the pain of standing in hours-long lines in ill-fitting shoes, has caused many voters to abandon their intentions all over the country. In predominantly black and Hispanic precincts around the country, touch-screen voting machines self-destruct in plumes of acrid green smoke. In the network election studios, this is referred to, laughingly, as the "'Mission Impossible' strategy."

At six o'clock Eastern time, Katie Couric calls the election for the Republicans (for the "Tom-Toms," as she refers to them), five hours before the West Coast polls close. Joe Lieberman promptly concedes, magnanimously admitting that "the better men won. I look forward to working with these gentlemen in bipartisan fashion for many years to come." The final vote tally represents 9% of registered voters and 4% of the population eligible to vote.

George Bush invites the President- and Vice President-elect to the White House for a victory dinner of Shiner Bock beer and Chateaubriand. Photographers capture Bush, face flushed, as he reaches across the dinner table, telling Mr. DeLay to "pull my finger."


Mr. Bush rescinds his Thanksgiving pardon of a turkey called "Big Ed" when the bird turns on him during a photo-op on the White House lawn. Mr. Bush suffers numerous pecking injuries on his face, hands and crotch, but is not hospitalized.


December, 2008....


Bill O'Reilly declares that secular humanists have declared war on Christmas (again).

Tom Cruise announces Dick Cheney as his chief of staff.

The Washington Post reports that Tom DeLay has notified the WHA of his intention to install a hot tub in Laura Bush's sewing room, and tells the Post of his desire to create a new cabinet position, tentatively titled "Secretary of the Christian Nation."

Immigration officials on the Canadian border say they are overwhelmed by the number of cars headed north. One beleaguered customs agent says, "now I know how Syria feels."

Oil reaches $200 per barrel.

Bush offers government bailout of investment banks and hedge funds overinvested in big shitpile bad mortgage securities, wants Congress to pass the bill "tomorrow." The Congressional Budget Office estimates the cost of the plan at $900 billion.

Press agents for the Vice President-elect say the actor would like to continue his film career during his term in office, to "keep his hand in and his face fresh," and a deal is being worked out for the movie version of "The West Wing" in which he will likely portray his interpretation of "the real Josiah Bartlett."

Russia, China, Iran and Iraq sign a mutual defense pact.

The Wall Street Journal editorializes, "once again, the world is spinning in greased grooves."

Nancy Pelosi, removed from office after only two years as Speaker, laments, "maybe I should have kept impeachment on the table."