The Onion: President Bush Creates Scandal-Coordination Cabinet

[MasterLcZ]

Posted: 2/1/06 at 4:21pm

Only Jon Stewart posesses a similar brilliance.

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President Creates Cabinet-Level Position To Coordinate
Scandals

February 1, 2006 | Issue 42•05

WASHINGTON, DC—In his State of the Union address to the
nation last night, President Bush announced a new cabinet-level
position to coordinate all current and future scandals facing his
party.


President Bush announces his plan to manage the numerous
scandals of his administration.
"Tonight, by executive order, I am creating a permanent
department with a vital mission: to ensure that the political
scandals, underhanded dealings, and outright criminal activities
of this administration are handled in a professional and orderly
fashion," Bush said.

The centerpiece of Bush's plan is the Department Of
Corruption, Bribery, And Incompetence, which will centralize
duties now dispersed throughout the entire D.C.-area political
establishment.

The Scandal Secretary will log all wiretaps and complaints of
prisoner abuse, coordinate paid-propaganda efforts, eliminate
redundant payoffs and bribes, oversee the appointment of
unqualified political donors to head watchdog agencies, control
all leaks and other high-level security breaches, and oversee
the disappearance of Iraq reconstruction funds. He will also be
responsible for issuing all official denials that laws have been
broken.

"Many of the current scandals in Washington are crucial to the
success of my priorities for the nation," Bush said. "The
Department of Corruption will safeguard these important
misdeeds."

White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card characterized the
president's announcement as part of a larger effort to usher in
a "new era of scandal management."

"The entire DCBI budget will come from private donors and
investors, through an illegal slush fund," he said. "The money
we'll save by eliminating redundancies and reducing scandal-
related overhead will come back to citizens tenfold in the form
of offshore corporate tax savings."

The Scandal Secretary will choose the elected official or
business leader who will assume full responsibility for each
scandal once it reaches fruition. His department will pen all
tearful apologies and plea agreements and make all necessary
arrangements for the designated scapegoat's transition to a
think tank, consultancy, law-partner position, or, if unavoidable,
cursory stint in a minimum-security prison. Scapegoats who
cannot be placed will be given oversight positions within the
Department of Corruption itself.


Candidates for Scandal Secretary, from left: Jack Abramoff,
the Republican lobbyist at the center of a public corruption
scandal; Scooter Libby, former vice presidential chief of staff
indicted on five counts; Tom DeLay, former House majority
leader charged with conspiracy to violate election laws; and
Michael Brown, who resigned from FEMA over his criticized
handling of Hurricane Katrina.
Congressional supporters of the post expressed hope that the
new secretary will bring a sense of order and accountability to
what has so far been a fragmented, inconsistent set of
controversies.

"Every week, it feels like another new scandal breaks," said F.
Tyler Jones, a convicted felon and Texas oil executive who has
been cited as a leading candidate for a position within the new
department. "Washington needs to run a tighter ship and get all
this corruption in order. It should feel less like a weekly thing
and more like once a month."

"Quality's been going down, too," Jones said. "You can't just
slap 'gate' on the end of something and call it a scandal. We
need higher standards in this country—we used to lead the
world, you know."

Many conservatives have criticized Bush's proposal, saying that
it only creates more big government.

"Teapot Dome and the fraud scandals of the Grant
Administration proceeded splendidly without government
oversight," National Review columnist Jonah Goldberg
said. "Officials received kickbacks and granted favors without
any knowledge beyond their circle until after the fact. They
knew what they were doing and didn't need any oversight. We
need to return to the days when unfettered capitalism and
enlightened self-interest led the way."

Bush defenders, however, said today's corruption scandals are
far too complex to be allowed to take an unregulated course.

"We can't afford to have the American people lose faith in the
government's ability to spearhead an effective scandal," TV
commentator Sean Hannity said. "The sheer number of major
scandals has gone way up in the past few years—but the level
of scandal coordination has remained at Clinton-era levels. The
system is obsolete. Plain and simple. I for one applaud Bush for
bringing corruption management into the 21st century."


The Onion

Updated On: 2/1/06 at 04:21 PM