Well. It happened. Much earlier than expected. When Lauren Boebert overheard Kevin McCarthy whispering to another House Representative about his intent to pass the debt ceiling legislation, Boebert tapped Kevin on the shoulder and said, “Time’s up, Kevin.”
“W-what?” Kevin said, a red flush oozing up his neck. “What the hell, Lauren?? You can’t do this!” He backed away.
“I want another dance partner, Kev,” Boebert said, stepping forward, “and yes, I can, and you agreed to it, remember? It takes just one member to disqualify the current speaker and arrange an audition for another one.” Her smile grew wild and her eyes bulged with glee.
“You dumb b— We’ll see about this,” he huffed as he pivoted and fled the floor of the House to seek out Scott Perry, his close confidant.
“Remember, Kevin,” Boebert said as he scurried away, “you agreed—in front of God and everyone. You just don’t have the right groove, Kevin. We want to dance with someone else.”
Kevin found Scott returning from the men’s restroom and spilled the beans about this latest kerfuffle with Boebert.
“Well, Kev,” Scott said, throwing up his hands, “she’s right. I told you not to do it, remember? Now you’re hoisted on your own petard.”
Once again, chaos ensued on the House floor. Paul Gosar suggested bringing in someone from the outside, someone with a certain cachet.
How about Charlie McCarthy? You remember the Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy show? Well, Edgar’s dead but his son Kris is alive, and I’m told has a good relationship with Charlie.”
“Are you nuts?” several members cried in unison.
“No. Think about the ratings—trading in one wooden dummy for another who can wisecrack with the best of ‘em! Hoo-boy, that’s a ratings grabber. The American people don’t really like government, anyway—we’ve seen to that. All they want is trash talk. I’m sure we could beat Tucker with Charlie.”
So, Charlie it was, along with Kris Bergen, his human assistant. The ratings went through the roof as predicted, but the novelty began to wear off at around week three. Soon, Charlie was tapped by Marjorie Taylor Greene, who nominated herself.
“What a nut job!” the monocled boy doll with the top hat was heard to say as he exited stage right.
There were the usual grumbles about Majorie at first, but finally they agreed that a human dummy was probably better than a dummy dummy!
But it was not to be. Within days, after she gave a lecture on the House floor about how Q was the only person she would take advice from, Jim Jordan gave her the tap heard round the House, thus ending her dreams of power.
Disturbed by their tanking ratings, the House then cast their eyes on the remaining GOP dregs.
“Santos!” Jim cried. “He’d be perfect. No one can lie like Santos. He even out-lies Trump! Look how many lies he told to get elected and is still telling them and is still sitting here! That kid’s got some brass, I tell ya. No one knows where his campaign money came from—genius, right? Just the type of Dude to lead us to the top of the ratings. Maybe we should invite Tucker to broadcast his show from the House floor. And invite Victor Orban. As we know, our base hates democracy as much as we do, so why not? What a coup! Would make Jan. 6 look like an Easter Parade.”
And so it was that Santos was anointed House Speaker. Immediately after the swearing in ceremony, his phone rang.
“Hello, Vlad,” Santos whispered. “Look, I’m kinda busy right now.”
“Congratulations, Santos. We back right ass this time.”
“You mean horse. You backed the right horse.”
“Da. Nice doing business. Do svidaniya.”
Rosie Sorenson is a humor writer in the San Francisco Bay Area. You can contact her at: RosieSorenson29@yahoo.com
From The Progressive Populist, February 15, 2023
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