Sections Humor and Satire More Barack-Bashing and McCain-Mashing Treats of Wit and Humor (Part II)
| More Barack-Bashing and McCain-Mashing Treats of Wit and Humor (Part II) |
Yes, both the Obama and McCain campaign camps are hurling at each other salvos, oops, humorous tidbits, if not accusations grounded on wit and hilarity. The latest gag is about the suggestion made by Sen. Barack Obama in a town-hall meeting in Berea, Ohio, on July 30, 2008, for motorists to help solve the energy problems of the United States by inflating their car tires properly. The McCain camp made fun of Mr. Obama’s suggestion and distributed to the members of the press tire gauges emblazoned with “Obama’s Energy Plan.” However, our columnist Jesse Jose remarked that Mr. Obama’s critics have been using for several months now the “Obama tire gauge (OTG)” to measure the inflated air in Mr. Obama’s speeches, if not his arrogance and/or ego.
Is there truth to the rumor that pretty soon Senator Obama’s campaign will use several hot-air-powered balloons to dramatize his quest for the presidency? But will the OTG issue deflate now Senator Obama’s wheel of fortune (or misfortune)? Will the air (of elitism) now come out of Mr. Barack’s hot-air blimp?
Filipino-American Poet-pundit Fred Burce Bunao says also that Mr. Obama definitely has Filipino roots because some of his critics call him by the same colloquial, if not racially-offensive, term “Flip.” Yes, critics have labeled Mr. Obama as a “flip-flopper.” Why, even Mr. Jose noted the flip-flopping antics of Senator Obama when he wrote in his A Cup O' Kapeng Barako column this very-witty piece, Barack Obama: the Joker, the Flip-flopper and the Liar In other words, is Senator Obama a “balimbing” in the fullest Filipino meaning of it?
Editor’s Note: To read Part I of this series, please click on this hyperlink:
The Barack-Bashing and McCain-Mashing Exercises of Wit and Humor in the 2008 Presidential Campaign
Even Paris Hilton got into the act. She responded to a Republican lampoon of a campaign ad that compared Senator Obama to celebrities Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. The mainstream press said that Ms. Hilton described Senator McCain as “that wrinkly, white-haired guy who used me in his campaign ad.” Then she posted a video on the comedy website, “Funny or Die,” in which she called Senator McCain as “the oldest celebrity in the world, like super-old, old enough to remember when dancing was a sin and beer was served in a bucket.”
The McCain camp’s spokesman Tucker Bounds responded to Ms. Hilton’s video by not calling it out-of-bounds (pun intended). He tucked it (pun also intended) and deflected Ms. Hilton’s dig to Mr. Obama and said, “Paris Hilton might not be as big a celebrity as Barack Obama, but she obviously has a better energy plan.”
Paris Hilton posted a video on “Funny or Die,” in
which she called Senator McCain as “the oldest celebrity in the world, like
super-old, old enough to remember when dancing was a sin and beer was served in
a bucket.”Well, Ms. Paris’s surname will always be involved in this
“Presidential Election 2008,” for after all Mr. McCain spent many years in the
“Hanoi Hilton.” On the other hand, Senator Obama has spent also many years at
many Hilton Hotels, attending parties with fellow celebrities, including
supposedly with Ms. “Hanoi Jane” Fonda.
Perhaps, this 2008 presidential contest will be unique in the sense that poet-pundits, wags and humorists like Messrs. Bunao, Jose, Seyer, et al, will have their fill of witticism, humor, if not satire. After all, they have more-than 90 days yet to make fun of their favorite candidates.
(To be continued . . .)
What, them worry?
By Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe Columnist | August 6, 2008
ALFRED E. Neuman isn't running for president this year, but he might as well be. The United States is speeding toward a fiscal cataclysm, and the leading presidential candidates treat the subject with a nonchalance worthy of Mad Magazine: What, me worry?
Last week, the Bush administration increased its estimated budget deficit for the coming fiscal year to $482 billion, an all-time high. The deficit could climb even higher, it conceded, since the new projection doesn't include the full cost of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan or the potential drop in tax collections if the economy continues to worsen. Meanwhile, the current fiscal year is projected to close with a $389 billion deficit - less than the $410 billion originally forecast, but substantially higher than last year's final deficit of just under $163 billion.
Unsurprisingly, the political class reacted to the news politically, mostly by upbraiding the Bush administration. The chairman of the House Budget Committee, South Carolina Democrat John Spratt, declared that because of George W. Bush, "the largest surpluses in history have been converted into the largest deficits." Spratt's Senate counterpart, Democrat Kent Conrad of North Dakota, predicted that "Bush will be remembered as the most fiscally irresponsible president in our nation's history." Neither mentioned that presidents can only spend money that Congress has appropriated, or noted that their party has had control of Congress for the past 19 months.
The two members of Congress running for president likewise jumped on the bash-Bush bandwagon. The new deficit numbers, said John McCain, are a "striking reminder of the need to reverse the profligate spending that has characterized this administration's fiscal policy." Barack Obama slammed the "reckless" policies that have "busted our budget, wreaked havoc in our economy, and mortgaged our children's future on a mountain of debt."
Too bad neither candidate used the occasion to speak seriously about the looming fiscal crisis. What they - and we - should be urgently focused on is not the budget deficit in any given year, but the crushing national debt that all those deficits cumulatively add up to: currently $9.6 trillion, and climbing rapidly. Just paying the interest on that debt will cost the government nearly $250 billion this year, making debt service the fourth-largest item in the federal budget.
But the surging cost of interest is nothing compared with the tidal wave of entitlement spending about to crash over us.
This is the year that the first of nearly 80 million baby boomers become eligible for Social Security payments; within three years, they will begin drawing Medicare benefits as well. Those two programs alone already account for one-third of the federal budget - 42 percent if you add Medicaid, which is also focused largely on the elderly. But in the years ahead, their costs will explode. If nothing changes, the Concord Coalition warns, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and interest on the national debt will consume every penny of federal revenues in less than 20 years.
Clearly, things will change. They have to. Either taxes will be hiked to unprecedented levels, or spending - especially on entitlement programs - must be forcefully reined in. There is no other alternative short of continuing to run up the national debt, thereby loading our children with an unconscionable financial burden.
But where is the presidential candidate who will talk honestly about this? McCain insists he will balance the budget and "provide the courageous leadership necessary to control spending." Yet his economic plan is devoid of details, offering little more than windy promises to "stop earmarks, pork-barrel spending, and waste" and freeze nondefense discretionary spending for a year while spending programs are reviewed.
Obama won't even go that far. His campaign touts a "Plan for Restoring Fiscal Discipline" that is as vague as McCain's, but he rules out balancing the budget - "because," he told reporters last month, "I think it is important for us to make some critical investments right now in America's families." The National Taxpayers Union Foundation, tallying the promises made by the presidential candidates, calculates that Obama 's "investments" would cost taxpayers another $344 billion a year. McCain's add up to an extra $68.5 billion.
We are awash in a sea of red ink, and the tide is coming in. Alfred E. Neuman isn't worried. Are Obama and McCain?
Jeff Jacoby's e-mail address is
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