Satirists Decry Presidential Self-Satirizing

The Guild of American Satirists denounced President Bush this week for Self- Satire. “As you know, unemployment is soaring and we don’t need the President of all people, taking the jobs of honest hard-working satirists.” Said GAS spokesperson Joe Kisanyou.

At issue were statements made by the President on his recent European Tour. “He actually claimed he wanted to ‘leave a legacy of diplomacy.’" Kisanyou reported angrily. "He was concerned that people think he is, as he put it, 'a guy really anxious for war.' Bush said, and I quote, 'I think that in retrospect I could have used a different tone, a different rhetoric. Bring them on and dead or alive, might have indicated to people that I was, you know, not a man of peace. '"

“I ask you, what is a satirist going to do with that? Nothing, that’s what! There is absolutely no further any of us could go. Bush is doing it all himself and there is no work left for the professionals.” Kisanyou concluded.

Some, however, feel that satirists should accept some of the blame. “Bush has made our job so easy for the last 7 years and I think we got complacent. We didn’t notice the President slowly becoming completely unmoored from reality, with the result that now he has, in effect, become his own satirist and we are out of work.” Said GAS member I. Ron Ickley. “I honestly don’t think he knows he’s doing it but it is still very damaging to our profession.”