McCain Announces Run for Presidency
Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain threw his hat into the
ring today when he told a cheering audience of amnesiacs that he will be a candidate for president in the November elections.
Reminded afterward by his valet, Sen. Joe I. Lieberman, that he had already secured the delegates needed for the Republican presidential nomination earlier this year, McCain responded, “Yes, but when it comes to seeking the highest office in the land, it’s as important as ensuring hot water for babies to be crystal clear about your intentions. Otherwise, you’re just giving aid and comfort to the terrorists.”
Image has not been found. URL: /files/washingtonindependent/iraq-latest-bailout/Jaundiced_I_large.jpg McCain’s speech was notable for other controversial remarks.
Touching on the war in Iraq, he retracted his notorious claim
that he’d be willing to keep American troops there for a hundred years. New actuarial information, he said, predicts that given normal life expectancies, they won’t live that long. "So they won’t be able to deliver the long-lasting peace and stability in the region,” he declared.
Speaking of dead, McCain vowed to establish an Iraq branch of the National Rifle Assn. as soon as he is elected, taking a load off the U.S. military by ensuring that all Iraqi civilians have guns. This will dramatically up the number of shots fired by the good guys — some of which would be bound to hit terrorists.
The Vietnam War hero and veteran senator then proposed a bold new economic-assistance measure: boarding rich people with poor people for an entire fiscal year, so these under-achievers can learn first-hand how to become wealthy and stop fighting tax breaks for the affluent.
Poor folks today have no idea how to collect fat fees for sitting on corporate boards, making a private jet a tax deduction, hiding funds offshore,” McCain lamented. “My friends, imagine the benefits for these — what I call ‘the dumb Americans’ — sitting around the shack chewing the fat with a fat cat every night. And as long as they’re doing that, they won’t be out committing crimes.”
Lastly, in an effort to separate his candidacy from the unpopular Bush administration, the senator promised not to wear cowboy boots to bed or play Grand Theft Auto video games between courses at state dinners. He also promised to declare a moratorium on malapropisms, “as soon as Joe Lieberman can find out for me what a malapropism is.”
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*Bruce McCall, a humorist, is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and Vanity Fair. He is the author of "All Meat Looks Like South America: The World of Bruce McCall" and "Zany Afternoons."
