CONSERVATIVE: No!
LIBERAL: Absolutely.
NDP: Definitely.
HOST: Tonight: the panel answers the question: was this election absolutely necessary?
CONSERVATIVE, LIBERAL, NDP: What?
CONSERVATIVE: I was told the question was going to be: are you looking forward to the new season of Heroes?
LIBERAL: I was told the question was going to be: do Stephane Dion’s glasses make him look distinguished?
NDP: I wasn’t told what the question was, but, since the election has been called, I plan on disagreeing with everything the Conservative says.
HOST: Tough luck, panel. Tonight’s question is: was this election absolutely necessary? One word answer, Conservative?
CONSERVATIVE: Yes!
HOST: Liberal?
LIBERAL: Absolutely –
HOST: NDP?
LIBERAL: Not!
NDP: (at the same time) No!
HOST: You’re watching Pundit Panel. Who wants to start the scrum?
LIBERAL: The Conservative campaign ads are trying to portray leader Stephen Harper as a regular guy. If they’re serious about that, they should show him getting drunk and throwing up on one of the five year-old children he visits!
CONSERVATIVE: Hunh! The Liberal ads are trying to portray Stephane Dion as a strong leader. All they’re missing is showing him ducking into a phone booth and coming out in tights and a cape.
LIBERAL: If they want to capture the real experience of too many Canadians, why don’t the Conservative ads show Harper trying to choose between putting food on the table or paying rent?
CONSERVATIVE: Why don’t the Liberal ads show Dion attacking a third world country, guns blazing, like Rambo?
LIBERAL: Why don’t the Conservative ads show Harper falling on his ass trying to teach his son how to skate?
CONSERVATIVE: Why don’t the Liberal ads show Dion hanging suspended in a box over a city street for 28 days?
HOST: NDP, do you want to get in on this?
NDP: Actually, I’m having too much fun watching them go at it.
LIBERAL: If Stephen Harper is such a regular guy, why don’t your ads show him stuffing a –
GREEN: Hey! How come I’m not represented on this panel?
NDP: You only have one MP!
CONSERVATIVE: You’re not a real party!
LIBERAL: You’re not here – how could you have asked that question?
HOST: Yes, politics is inscrutable, isn’t it?
GREEN: Scrum bags!
HOST: Okay, now, there’s no need to –
GREEN: Scrum of the earth!
HOST: Look, if you can’t be civil, you?ll have to be removed from the panel.
LIBERAL: How can you remove the Green from the panel when the Green isn’t on the panel in the first place?
HOST: The same way the Green can insult us without being here.
NDP: Oooh – you’re good.
HOST: I wasn’t chosen to be host for my good looks.
CONSERVATIVE: Actually…
HOST: Well, not only for my good looks. Okay, panel, since we were discussing early campaign ads: bird shitting on Stephane Dion: mistake or catastrophe?
NDP: Catastrophe.
LIBERAL: Catastrophe.
CONSERVATIVE: You know, the Prime Minister apologized for the ad, which was immediately pulled from circulation.
HOST: The poop is gone, but the bird remains. The thing is, campaign ads have traditionally been about metaphorically shitting on your opponent. If you openly shit on your opponents in campaign ads, haven’t you reached the nadir of campaign advertising?
…
HOST: Anybody want to respond to that issue?
…
HOST: Anybody?
…
HOST: Have we reached a new low in political campaigning?
LIBERAL: Oh, no.
CONSERVATIVE: No, no.
NDP: Certainly not. We’ve got two months worth of campaigning still to go!
HOST: Phew!
NDP: Although, if pressed, you know, if given no choice in the matter, back against the wall and all that, I would have to say that the puffin ad was childish and bullying.
CONSERVATIVE: No, it wasn’t, you Communist [EXPLETIVE DELETED]!
NDP: Kind of petulant, too.
HOST: Maybe we’re not looking at it the right way. Could it be that negative campaign advertising is actually good for voters and the electoral process?
NDP: How do you figure that?
HOST: Well, it…it forces people to confront politicians’ stands on the most important issues of the day, stands they might duck if the ads didn’t exist.
NDP: Un hunh. So, what stand was Barack Obama supposed to take when the McCain campaign released an ad accusing him of sponsoring a law that supported teaching sex to elementary school children?
HOST: Well…obviously…I…I…help me out, here, Conservative.
CONSERVATIVE: You dug this hole for yourself. Don’t look at me.
HOST: Oh. Well? Thank you, everyone, for another enlightening segment of Pundit Panel.
LIBERAL: We’ve still got five minutes.
HOST: No, we don’t. We’re going to a commercial.
LIBERAL: But –
HOST: Go to a commercial. NOW!