Impending presidential boner has nation on edge
JUNIOR BACON
President Bush, the human code red, delivers a speech with some help from his “Li'l Dubya” ventriloquist's dummy
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The United States Presidential Warning System (or “Terra Box” as it is fondly known around the White House, a tongue-in-cheek reference to the president’s speech impediment) reached its highest level Tuesday, signifying a major presidential gaffe or screwjob is impending. This news immediately scrambled foreign government officials, environmental groups and talk-show writers nationwide, who entered their own highest states of readiness and/or dread.
The little-known Presidential Warning System has been in place since the 1960’s, but it quickly fell out of favor during the Nixon presidency. Aides kept finding the siren-like device hidden in desk drawers or crammed beneath sound-deadening mattresses in the Lincoln bedroom over the course of Nixon’s term, and records indicate it was later disconnected under questionable circumstances involving a bottle of tequila and a fire axe. Efforts were made to bring the system back on-line during former president Ronald Regan’s first term, but upon being turned on the device immediately let out an eardrum-shattering blurt before quickly overheating. It then caught fire and had to be put out with a shoe.
The nation operated without a Presidential Warning System during the Bush Sr. and Clinton administrations, as the device reminded George Bush Sr. too much of his childhood nemesis, the board game Operation, and President Clinton found it seriously hampered his social life.
The current siren-less incarnation of the device, consisting of a black box covered in lighted rectangles that are color-coordinated to the various levels of presidential “terra,” was brought online at the start of the latest Bush presidency. The new system was even praised by the president himself early in his term, when he said of the device: “I made it to the fourth level last night. Take that, Simon.”
Tuesday the system registered an alert status of red, which according to the device’s manual translates to “Holy Shit” written next to a picture of a little stick man with a gun in his mouth. However, officials cannot say for certain how many times Bush has “bagged a red” since being elected, since Tuesday was also the day a White House staffer discovered the device holding up a candle in the presidential bathroom and no one was certain how long it had been missing.
“While this may seem like an opportune time to panic, it is important to point out that the red bulb on the device appears to be nearly burnt out,” explained system designer Elwood Bond. “This is a good sign that we’ve been on red alert for most of the last two years, so this is more a ‘business-as-usual’ kind of doom than anything.”
Asked if the system might be calibrated too sensitively, given that highest level of impending doom was continuously lit, Bond answered that the system really wasn’t designed with a Bush-caliber president in mind.
“I set up the system so it would go red only in dire circumstances, like when Bush Sr. approved the CDC sending samples of anthrax, botulism and West Nile to Iraq in the early 90’s, or when we gave them the helicopters they used to gas the Kurds in 1988. Or really any time after the Shah fell in Iran and we were providing Saddam and the Iraqis with arms, intelligence and free money to help them invade Iran. All those are red-level events. Maybe orange. But Bush Jr. goes red just taking a piss.”
But is there any way to tweak the system so that Bush isn’t consistently in the red?
“I dunno,” replied Bond, scratching his head. “It does have an ‘off’ switch.”
the commune news is currently at a state of yellow alert, which probably means the Chinese have laid siege on the building. We’re not sure, we lost the owner’s manual for this thing. Lil Duncan is the commune’s Washington correspondent and the reason some think SARS is sexually transmitted.
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