The Onion
September 13, 2010 | ISSUE 46•37
NEW YORK — Following an Aug. 28 rally in Washington, D.C. attended by an estimated 87,000 Americans, experts confirmed this week that the U.S. populace appears to have fallen under the spell of yet another pink-faced half-wit.
The latest pink-faced half-wit.
The most recent pink-faced halfwit has reportedly captured the popular imagination through the conventional vehicles of a nationally syndicated talk-radio program and a cable news television show. According to media analyst Rebecca Ellington, the pink-faced half-wit has mesmerized the nation by spewing out hundreds of predictably reactionary and emotion?ally manipulative on-air diatribes.
"This particular pink-faced half-wit is at the height of his persuasive powers," Ellington said of the bloated, hateful multimillionaire. "By exploiting citizens' greatest anxieties during an uncertain time in our nation’s history, the pink-faced half-wit has been able to promote his own vain, avaricious self-interests under the guise of standing up for the very disenfranchised people whom he himself is fleecing."
"I've seen a number of pink-faced half-wits during my career, and in the pantheon of bombastic demagogues, this one will surely be remembered as one of the most disgusting," Ellington continued. "It’s truly extraordinary: He may well be too ambitious and narcissistic to be able to comprehend how much damage he is doing to our country."
According to scholars, pink-faced half-wits have had remarkable staying power throughout history despite their outlandish, easily debunked claims, shameless self-promotion, and complete lack of credentials. More often than not, experts said, these pasty, shallow dullards skillfully manage to control debate on the most important social and political topics of the day.
Droves of supporters arrived in Washington to show their support for the pink-faced half-wit.
"Anytime followers heed his advice and do something illegal, [the pink-faced half-wit] can simply claim that his work is intended only for entertainment purposes," said Ellington, proffering a copy of the current pink-faced half-wit’s inane ghostwritten thriller The Overton Window, a thinly veiled conduit for an untenable and potentially dangerous fringe ideological message. "This leaves them free to wield their truly baffling influence in incredibly irresponsible ways without fear of accountability."
Dr. David Snider, a media historian and author of the book Frothing, Shouting Dim-Bulbs: An American Tradition, said that the current porcine loudmouth is the latest in a long line of pink-faced half-wits that began in the 1930s with the incendiary radio broadcasts of Father Charles Coughlin, a pink-faced half-wit Roman Catholic priest.'[More]