Editor’s note: Michael Ackley’s columns may include satire and parody based on current events, and thus mix fact with fiction. He assumes informed readers will be able to tell which is which.
Howard Bashford glumly convened the final, pre-election meeting of the Democratic Party /Mainstream Media Coordinating Committee.
“It’s not looking good for our guys,” he told the assemblage. “Our ‘October surprise’ really backfired.”
“How were we to know the missing explosives story would blow up in our faces?” asked the representative of the New York Times, laughing wryly at his own pun.
“You have to agree we were pretty careful,” said the delegate from CBS’ “60 Minutes.”
“We did point out that the United Nations reported tons of explosives missing before the United States invaded.
“But, frankly, we at the network were shocked that the great, gray New York Times would be so careless as to downplay the fact nobody really knows when the stuff was removed. It was just like sticking our chin out and asking the Republicans to sock us.
“You should know a last-minute smear has to be air-tight.”
“Oh, yeah!” the Times rep shot back. “You’re still trying to get the egg off your faces from the National Guard ‘documents’ fiasco. This is nothing compared to that screw-up. We never should have teamed up with you on the explosives story. Why …”
“We were set up on the forged documents story,” exclaimed the network rep. “It had to be Karl Rove and his operatives. They took advantage of an unstable veteran, planted the memos and … Look, we haven’t yet had to fire our top news executives the way you did after the Jayson Blair scandal, and …”
“You will,” the Times man counter attacked. “Rather’s goose is cooked. You haven’t …”
“How dare you besmirch a giant of journalism,” the CBS delegate interrupted, “You hack!”
“Broadcaster!” the Times man sneered.
“Yellow journalist!” said the CBS man.
“Jackal!”
“Dupe!”
“@#&#!”
“Gentlemen! Gentlemen!” Bashford interceded. “There’s plenty of blame to go around. Besides, we had no way of knowing the president would counterattack so effectively. The purpose of this meeting is to make sure such a thing doesn’t happen again.”
“Well, it sure won’t happen again this year,” said the CBS rep. “There isn’t time to whip up another October surprise at this late date. We’re just going to have to put the best face possible on it.”
“Lipstick on the pig, eh?” said the Times man.
“That’s right,” said Bashford. “What do you think of the setup scenario in this case? It didn’t fly after the documents – uh – problem, but it might be all we have on the explosive’s issue.
“You know, how to frame it: Rove got together with the United Nation’s Mohamed ElBaradei and cooked up a scheme – a really sophisticate scheme – to make us look bad by first making Bush look bad, all the while knowing there would be time for the Internet amateurs to debunk the story.”
“Those amateurs chewed us up pretty good on the documents story,” grumbled the CBS man. “By and large, people didn’t buy the ‘Republican conspiracy’ dodge, but it did give our base something to hang on to.”
“Maybe it will serve that purpose again,” said Bashford, “as long as nobody remembers the old adage about victims of fraud.”
“What’s that?” the media reps asked in unison.
“You can’t cheat an honest man,” Bashford replied.
