[Newspoetry] shit hits fan

[Donald L Emerick]

Dear Editor, personally, I would have preferred the related political news
story that you did not report because you did not hear of it -- for I failed
to file my story before deadline.  As I was not the source copyright owning
reporter, either, I can give you a fragmentary account of that story, of
what it tried to say, had it been written.

Bush Declares Big War on Less Obvious Things (BigLots)
-- Washington, April 18, 2002

Showing his true philosophical depths, President GW Bush today announced
that his administration was establishing a new White House Office aimed at
Obvious truths.  The President said, "I get tired of hearing people say to
me, but George, it's so obvious, how could you fail to see that?  Well, if
it's so obvious, why do we even need to talk about it?  If it's so obvious,
why has no one ever pointed it out to me before?"

The President went on to mention the "Shit Hits Fan" theory as one of those
obvious things that someone should have explained to him long ago.  He said,
"Heck, I wouldn't have had to waste all those Sundays in church if I had
known that this obvious theory was obviously true.   I surely have wasted my
time cultivating the yahoos of the religious right-wing, too, because I
value being right far more than I value being popular."

Senator Lieberman reacted with apparent anger and scorn for the President's
apparent falling away from his faith in faith.  "Why, if the President
starts believing in obvious things, then there will never be fun anymore
throwing shit into people's faces and saying that it might have happened
because it might have been God's will, for some inscrutable and non-obvious
reasons...  Heck, the Palestinians might even get a fair hearing in the
American press, and where would that leave us?  Well, when that shit
(finally) hits the fans of justice, look out!  I for one do not want to risk
live in such a hell as a just world."

House Leader Gephart said that the White House Obvious-based Initiative
League raised distinctly difficult problems of budget and legality
(constitutionality).  For instance, nothing in the Constitution says that
the President has the right to define what is obvious.  When a reporter
mentioned that the President would not be defining what is obvious, but
merely listing what was obvious, Gephart responded, "I fail to see your
point.  (And, strangely echoing the President,)  If it is so obvious why has
no one in Congress ever thought that it was so, before the President said
that it was so?  More critically, though, stating the obvious is an unfunded
mandate, whose programmatic costs -- according to an estimate I made up on
the way over to this press conference -- will represent yet another huge
bite out of the Social Security Trust Funds."

Vice President Cheney defended the Administration's new found Comprehensive
Obviousness Policy by saying that a legislative package would soon be sent
up to the Hill, for legal implementation.  "Make no mistake about it, this
Administration is determined to appear to be the most Obvious administration
in the history of America!  We are not just going to fart around and blow
gas at the American people, the way that a lot of prior Administrations
have.  We are going to deliver the Obvious, to the rich and the poor, to the
white and the black, to the brown and the grey, to the red and the white and
the blue, too.  No one will be left out in the cold by the Obvious program."

A few commentators thought that the Veep had confused the President's
example (shit hits fan) with the President's program -- but other
commentators insisted that, if anyone at all was confused, it would have
been the President, because the Veep always straightens out the President's
messes.  Indeed, one commentator projected that the Veep's job of managing
the administration had just become a job that was going to be up to its
eyeballs in shit, because the President liked his frenetic fans,
fanatically, and was likely to be piling (even more) shit all around the
WhiteHouse, in Obvious places, of course -- to be seen on those
photo-opportunity tours of the WhiteShitHouse -- and to be blown all over
the place.  "The Truly Big Question is How Obvious must the Shit become,
before the Administration succeeds in this novel and bold venture into
supporting the Obvious?"

Elsewhere, the public's reaction was muted as it had mutated beyond
mutilating obvious words.  Or else, as John Kennedy once said, pirating his
"While America Slept" text from venerables, "Obvious, Self-Evident Truth is
why America sleeps, peacefully at night, unaware of how the enemy enters his
home.  Bush only promises America that it can sleep safely and securely
again, that there will be no monsters under the bed, even if the bed has to
be destroyed, and its mattress burned, to get all of those monstrous bed
bugs."  (Some commentators remarked that Kennedy never said that before he
died, but this subtle point was lost on most of the press corps.  Afterall,
a quote's a quote, even if some dead white guy says it and even if he waited
until he was dead to say it.  And, some said that commentators who said that
must be deeply troubled and against spirituality.  "What's left to report,
without stories of ghosts, goblins and god, too?")

Thanks for listening,
Your bushed WSH reporter,
Donald L Emerick