Murphy's Bill

A guest post by Mark W. Bradley

(Dateline - Washington D.C.)

In a bold move aimed at solidifying its congenitally stultified base, the Bush administration today unveiled its latest plan to elevate Murphy’s Law to the status of a Constitutional Amendment. Congressional representatives from both sides of the aisle have been lining up since 10:00 a.m. this morning to co-sponsor the legislation, and media coverage of Thursday’s eagerly anticipated floor debate is expected to be wall-to-wall, with CNN, MSNBC, Fox News and the Disney Channel leading the way. (C-SPAN has announced it’s sticking with a prior commitment to cover Lyndon LaRouche’s 84th birthday party in Ann Arbor, Michigan.) Earlier this afternoon, the White House issued a press release laying out the language of the proposed amendment, a copy of which found its way into this reporter’s hands. It read as follows:

“Be it resolved, that anything that can go wrong, should be allowed to go wrong, as quickly and frequently as possible. In the event preemptive action on the part of the Executive Branch is required in order to catalyze, facilitate and/or expedite such calamities, a willful failure on the part of any citizen to actively engage in promoting such preemption shall be considered a violation of Executive Order 2768119B. Furthermore, whosoever shall inquire into the cause of such unfortunate inevitabilities shall be declared a seditious and undesirable miscreant, subject to whatever punitive remedies, civil or criminal, may be deemed appropriate by the president, the vice-president or any other constitutionally mandated officer charged with preserving the public safety, including (but not limited to) policemen, firemen, postmen, utility workers, animal-control agents, UPS drivers, retired Salvadoran death-squad members, floor managers from Walmart, and concerned citizens with magnetic steel plates in their heads.”

In response to questions from the White House Press Corps, Press Secretary Tony Snow revealed the following:

“I hate to admit it, but I’m really not up to speed on this particular Constitutional Amendment,” he confided. “When the First Lady called my office this morning to give me a heads up, the first thing I did was go to my laptop and double-check this month’s Constitutional Amendment calendar. When I couldn’t find it anywhere on there, I called the vice-president, who informed me that this amendment was the one that was supposed to replace the other amendment that got pulled from consideration a couple days ago, you know, the one the president talked to you guys about last week at the ranch? Remember? That was the one that would have required written documentation from at least three of your parents stating they’d received Pasteur Treatments prior to 1894, in order for you to be able to purchase pseudoephedrine and a disposable camera from the same store…”

Mark W. Bradley is a former satirist (who’s now serious as cancer) and a former teacher from Sacramento, California (whose livelihood was taken from him when “Anonymous” contacted each and every parent in his low-income school district and convinced them to withdraw their children from the public schools and instead enroll them in expensive private institutions where they could enjoy cucumber sandwiches and learn to play Squash). Mr. Bradley now works as a private contractor in the aluminum-recycling industry, and spends his free time fabricating pathetically implausible stories about Washington D.C., which he sells to the Liberal Girl Next Door for enough money to buy glue.