No obligatory ‘Twas the Night’ parody this year

Twas the night before Christmas and all through the press

All the pundits were searching for words to address

How insurance reform to improve our healthcare

Could be done if Joe Lieberman would only play fair

 

The Senators nestled all snug in their seats

While the House members clamored for pork barrel teats

Obama’s in Denmark, Glenn Beck’s on TV

All I want is a doctor who’ll help me to pee

Aw … screw this.

There will likely be thousands of parodies of “A Visit from St. Nicholas” published in the next 24 hours, with probably 90% of those about the healthcare reform debate going on in Congress right up till Christmas Eve. The more I think about it, the more I’d rather not be a part of that thundering herd of journalistic caribou.

I could just re-run the parody I wrote last year at this time. It’s a hilarious take on the difficulty President Obama was having selecting members of his first cabinet, and has as much relevance today as, well, as the Y2K bug and Garth Brooks. So maybe I’ll go in a different direction.

I’ve already done a lot of research on obscure Congressmen, how their vote could sway the final tally, and how well their name could fit into the rhyme scheme of the above-aborted parody. It was not looking easy.

“On Ruppersberger! On Frelinghuysen! On Faleomavaego! On Christian-Christensen! On Judy Chu! On Anna Eshoo! On Flake, Fudge and Stupak!”

Then there was the prospect of dealing with the leading Republican opponent of reform in the House, Minority Leader John Boehner. Does he rhyme with “insaner,” “moaner” or “Donner”? And if he did play the role of a reindeer in the poem, wouldn’t his orange pallor clash with Rudolph’s red nose?

I finally got distracted enough by the list of House members to abandon my attempt at parody, and simply enjoy a good laugh at the expense of certain representatives with amusing names. Now I realize we’ll never surpass the height of immature hilarity we had in the golden times earlier this decade, when the three most powerful men in government were George Bush, Dick Cheney and Colin Powell, and their top legislative lieutenants were Dick Armey and Tom DeLay. (If only Secretary of Defense nominee Seymour Butz hadn’t been rejected in that nanny-cam scandal…)

So here I present members of the Funny Named Congressional Caucus. If you want to try to arrange them into some semblance of a poem, good luck.

• Steve Austria

• Joe Baca

• Brian Bilbray

• John Boozman

• Madeleine Bordallo

• Bobby Bright

• Norman Dicks

• Chaka Fattah

• Jeff Flake

• Marcia Fudge

• Al Green

• Dale Kildee

• Marcy Kaptur

• Jerry Lewis

• David Loebsack

• David Obey

• John Shadegg

• Adam Smith

• Zachary Space

• Bart Stupak

• Chris Van Hollen

• Zach Wamp

• Tony Weiner

• Joseph Cao

• Louie Gohmert

• Bob Goodlatte

• Mike Honda

• Chellie Pingree

• Eric J.J. Massa

• Bobby Rush