The Massachusetts Spy Volume CCXXXVI, Number 132  June 30, 2006 

Hot Off the Trail

Blood on the Tracks:

SENATOR LOST
IN TRAIN WRECK

By David Bloviator, Political Editor with
Robert Scott, Travel and Transportation Correspondent

The remains of the Straight Talk Express
Sen. John McCain (R – Falwell) was buried under the wreckage of his "Straight Talk Express"

LYNCHBURG, Va. – Following a series of derailments and switching errors, Senator John McCain's "Straight Talk Express" crashed and burned today outside this rural backwater, taking with it all traces of Sen. McCain's once vaunted reputation for integrity and moderation.

The scene at the crash sight was a grisly pile of twisted wreckage.  Few pieces were identifiable, other than a tattered campaign button that said "Re-elect Joe Lieberman."

Sen. McCain's last words, uttered just before the train plunged off the embankment, were reportedly a repetition of the Republican smear that Democrats who questioned Bush's open-ended and strategy-free commitment of American blood and treasure to an Iraqi civil war were in fact advocating a policy of "cut and run." With that, the Straight Talk Express broke down completely, derailed, plunged into a ravine and burst into flames.

Political Transportation officials said the train first ran into difficulty when it apparently jumped the track outside Lynchburg, where Sen. McCain declared that gay-bashing Jerry Falwell was miraculously no longer an "agent of intolerance," as Sen. McCain had described the beefy bigot back in 2000.

Others noted that the train appeared to be running backwards in recent months, citing a 180 degree turn from Sen. McCain's previous advocacy of fiscal restraint to a new policy of supporting the extension of President Bush's investment tax cuts for the rich. "The train never ran quite right after that," one said.

Further problems arose when the train headed into Mississippi and was immediately sidetracked by two of the South's most notorious reactionary wardheelers. According to the Schtockusville Commercial Dispatch, [Confirm name – Copy Ed.]

    U.S. Sen. John McCain said he'll decide in early 2007 if he's running for president and is counting on at least two Mississippi Republican leaders for guidance.

    McCain said he's seeking advice from U.S. Sen. Trent Lott and Gov. Haley Barbour, whom he called “two of the most astute political observers I've ever known.”

Others claimed that the train had been on the wrong track for some time, barreling full steam ahead on the path of uncritical support of Bush's pointless floundering in the Iraqi quagmire. These experts noted that Sen. McCain had voted time after time to finance Bush's Baghdad expedition with money borrowed from America's children and grandchildren, who would be stuck paying the bill but would be sadly unable to benefit from Sen. McCain's honest and independent straight talk.

Following the train disaster, the Senator was unable to crawl from the wreckage to stand up for the conservative values of limited government and free speech by voting against a demagogic GOP proposed constitutional amendment that would remove First Amendment protection from the national menace of flag burning.

The news that Sen. McCain's reputation had perished in the wreckage was received in Washington, D.C. with enormous sadness. "He was always ready to pontificate on my show at a moment's notice," recalled truckling gasbag Tim Russert, reached by phone on Nantucket.

He then passed the phone to neighbor and fellow softball pitcher Chris Matthews, who told the Spy: "Did you know he was a war hero? That meant that anything he said, no matter how far-fetched or patently false, was A-OK with me."

The Massachusetts Spy  is made possible by a generous grant from the Harvard Corporation

Fellows of Harvard College

100 Pyrex Avenue, Corning, New York

Dear Valued Member of the Harvard Community,

We are taking this opportunity to contact each and every one of you personally, sort of, to let you know how important your contribution is to the search for a new President of Harvard University: not very.

Even as we express our gratitude to President Larry Summers for finally taking the freakin' hint and jumping into the Charles River, we are faced with the challenging task of choosing his successor. Fortunately, we are more than up to the task – after all, we are the Harvard Corporation.

As we complete this task in utter secrecy and without any accountability to the various constituencies that have a legitimate interest in the identity of the next President, it is critical that we maintain the illusion of openness to the ideas, however crudely expressed, of students, alumni, faculty and other timewasters.

Therefore, before we offer the Presidency to the person who sufficiently flatters the sensibilities of an upstate New York glass maker, a Wall Street plutocrat, an economist, a woman and a Negro (in this case, a twofer), we urge you to send us the names of any individuals that you believe we should be pleased to consider. Please email your thoughts, such as they are, to the Harvard University Presidential Search Committee at the email address it has set up for this purpose: circularfile@harvard.edu.

We thank you for your interest in the Presidential search process. You may go now.