Weekly World News III

In 2005, with the Senate in a deadlock over whatever partisan bullshit they were deadlocked over and Cindy Sheehan staking out President Bush’s Crawford, Texas ranch to protest the bullshit war in Iraq that cost her son his life but on which Bush insisted he would "stay the course" (even though his course lead straight to the edge of a cliff), I wrote this article for Weekly World News. The editor passed on it, but I throw away nothing:

TRAPPED SENATORS “STAY THE COURSE”

© 2008 Paul Kupperberg

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Six senators were heading down to the lobby of the Senate Office Building on their way to lunch when the escalator they were riding on lurched to a stop.

When passersby on the adjacent staircase suggested that the senators walk down the rest of the way, Senator Robert Byrd (R-West Virginia) said, “No, we started this by riding the escalator and we intend to stay the course.”

Chip “William” Rutherford, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee, said, “Look, the escalator company obviously has an agenda that goes beyond moving people up and down between levels. I think we have to ask ourselves, what do they gain from this so-called ‘unexpected’ breakdown.”

Rick Santorum (R-Pennsylvania) said, “As Americans, these senators have the right to expect quality, people moving conveyances.”

Senator Hillary Clinton (D-New York) said, “This is all another right wing smokescreen designed to divert the attention of the American people from what’s really important, which is that the right wing is always wrong.”

In a special session of the House Appropriations Committee, $8 billion in emergency escalator repair was voted on and a no-bid contract awarded to Haliburton to begin efforts to get the senators moving again.

The president issued a statement in sympathy and support of the trapped senators but, declaring that he needed to “keep his own life moving forward even if the senators couldn’t,” left on a two week vacation at his Crawford, Texas ranch.

Arnold Schwang, a retired escalator repair man, began a vigil outside the ranch, vowing to stay there until the president was “properly and completely embarrassed.”