Who Might Depart White House Next to Thwart Satirists? Dick Cheney?
Internet satirists who write about the Bush Administration and its foibles are agape over the departure of senior White House advisor Karl Rove and openly worried about what they will write in the future.
“There’s no question this is a big blow and one it will be hard to recover from,” said Blinkie Winterbun, executive director of the National Association of Internet Fake Journalists. “First they took away Don Rumsfeld as a source of satirical material. And now Rove? Who’s next, Cheney?”
Rove, who President Bush fondly nicknamed “Turd Blossom” was a frequent target of satirists and humorists. Dubbed “Boy Genius” by some admirers, including Bush himself, he became a larger than life political insider upon whom some admirers bestowed mythic powers.
“I’m sitting here right now staring at my computer screen wondering what to write. I’m stumped. Numb. They’ll never be able to replace Rove,” said Augie Rotterdam, the wit behind Rovolicious.com. “Who is there left to write about in the Bush circus? Bob Gates at DOD? Mike Chertoff at Homeland Security? Can you possibly imagine writing anything the least bit amusing about Mike Chertoff?”
Rove’s departure highlights a worrisome problem within the Bush Administration in terms of providing material to Internet satirists and humorists: the recent tendency to appoint colorless, uncontroversial ciphers to key Administration posts.
“Can you name the ambassador to the United Nations?” Winterbun asked. “Would you care to parody the head of the National Security Agency? Or the top dog at good ol’ FEMA? Quick, write five hundred funny words about the head of FEMA. Better yet, I challenge you to give me the name of FEMA’s director and here we are with the hurricane season bearing down on us.”
Many Internet satirists and humorists are reluctant to talk about their greatest fear when it comes to writing about the goings on inside the Beltway.
“My greatest fear?” said Chancey Southerland, webmaster at ThropicNut.com. “That they will take away Bush himself. They do that, I’m out of business, no ThropicNut. I hope they keep Bush forever. Only thing worse than getting rid of Bush would be if they got rid of the Beltway. That would really be the end of me.”