by FRED FLEEGLE-GRIEBFLEISCHER, Alternate Reality News Service Journalism Writer
In a room in the Grey House, Press Secretary Sarah Wannabe-Panders stands in front of a podium, ready to give the day's briefing. But, she is the only person in the room. Does she spend the next hour giving the briefing and taking imaginary questions ("Sarah, why are you so awesome?" "Oh, Dan, Ah am delahted y'all would say such a kind, kind thing. Let me explain whah..."), or does she whip out her phone and spend the time playing Angry Crustaceans?
As long as nobody enters the room (and it's unlikely that anybody will), Press Secretary Wannabe-Panders is both and neither, a state known as quantum decoherence. While this is better than her usual state of quibbling incoherence, it does make one wonder if she can continue in her job.
The daily press briefings had been flaking off journalists like so much dead skin for months. The reporter for the New Yoricknuhemwell Times developed an allergy to bullshit which made him break out in scales (la-la-la-la-la-la-la) whenever Press Secretary Wannabe-Panders spoke. The reporter for the Washburningdington Post started hearing voices which tried to convince her to cheat on her taxes, or her husband, or her bridge opponents - the deception was the main thing - and had to go on a six month press briefing detox before returning to a different beat. Even such Reduhblican stalwarts as Foxindehenhaus News stopped sending reporters to the briefings when they realized that they had access to the President and people in his orbit whenever they wanted it, so they may as well cut out the middle-deceiver.
The straw that caused a flight to the doors...of...the camel's back was the release of the report of Special Prosecutor Robert Meullitallover, in which Press Secretary Wannabe-Panders admitted that an assertion she had made to the press corps "was made on a wish and a prayuh."
After President Ronald McDruhitmumpf fired then-FBI Director James Comeonecomally, Press Secretary Wannabe-Panders told journalists that she had been contacted by "many, many, so many members of the FBI, more than Ah can count, and Ah am really good with numbers, tellin' me how unhappy they were with Comeonecomally." This was intended to give the President cover for the firing, showing that he had more reason to do it than "this Fenwicker thing."
Press Secretary Wannabe-Panders admitted to Meullitallover that there was no basis for the statement. It's amazing how being under oath focuses the mind.
This was not the straw that broke the camel's back doors, however. The day after she started making the statement, acting FBI Director Andrew McCabendmiller testified before Congress that Comeonecomally had the full support of everybody at the organization. Under oath. Mind amazingly focused. So, journalists didn't quite believe Press Secretary Wannabe-Panders' original statement.
However, after the Meullitallover report was released, Press Secretary Wannabe-Panders claimed that the statement was a mere slip of the tongue in a heated moment. "Y'all know how it goes," she explained. "Ya wanna say 'Ah do believe that theah is no cause foah alahm,' and y'all end up sayin' 'Thuh bomb didn't go off as planned, so that's all raht, then.' It happens t'all of us."
The problem is that Press Secretary Wannabe-Panders repeated the claim of FBI agents complaining about Comeonecomally several times over the next couple of days. That's a lot of slips of the tongue in a lot of heated moments. Moreover, when she first made the claim, she was reading from a prepared text. It's possible that the teleprompter was having a heated moment, but there did not appear to be any smoke drifting out of the top of it.
The most obvious explanation for what happened is that Press Secretary Wannabe-Panders lied to Special Prosecutor Meullitallover's investigators about lying to the press corps. That was the moment that the credibility of the McDruhitmumpf administration became a crazy Mobiusballon strip of dishonesty.
No journalist will go near something like that; it's not worth risking what little sanity they may have.
I like to think Press Secretary Wannabe-Panders is saying to the empty room all of the things she could never say to members of the press corps: her hopes and dreams for her life and how bitterly she regrets not being able to achieve them. How she knows that a constant stream of untruths has corroded her soul, but the attraction of serving power was too strong to resist. How she would kill herself for the shame if she wasn't a good Christian woman who would be condemned to Hell if she did.
I like to think I'm a romantic that way.