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Reports

What’s This? Scooter McCain?

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Posted on Aug 5, 2007

By Andy Borowitz

In what some political observers are calling an ominous sign for his cash-starved White House bid, Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., today posted his campaign bus, The Straight Talk Express, on the Internet auction site eBay.

Mr. McCain denied that the move stemmed from money problems, stressing instead that he had decided to sell the bus so that it would no longer provide fodder for sarcastic headlines such as “Wheels Come Off Straight Talk Express” or “Straight Talk Express: Out of Gas?”

“The Straight Talk Express was giving headline writers too much to work with,” Sen. McCain told reporters. “They won’t be able to do that anymore, now that I’m getting around from town to town on a Segway.”

Davis Logsdon, dean of the journalism school at the University of Minnesota, said that the number of sarcastic headlines riffing on the name of Mr. McCain’s campaign had swelled to as many as 7,000 in the last two weeks alone.

“Every morning, newspapers were running headlines like ‘Straight Talk Express Runs into a Ditch’ or ‘Straight Talk Express Has a Flat Tire,’” Professor Logsdon said. “There was even one that said ‘Straight Talk Express Low on Windshield Wiper Fluid,’ whatever that means.”

But even as Mr. McCain swapped his campaign bus for a Segway scooter, there were signs that his efforts to avoid sarcastic headlines about his mode of transportation had not been successful, as the Toledo Blade ran a story entitled, “McCain Campaign: Segway to Defeat?”

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Elsewhere, President Bush said that his successful colonoscopy was “proof that invasions work.”

Award-winning humorist, television personality and film actor Andy Borowitz is author of “The Republican Playbook.”

© 2007 Creators Syndicate


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By Skruff, August 7, 2007 at 9:00 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

What amazes me is that anyone, particularly 7000 headlines, is discussing McCain at all.  He was done for the Conservatives when he sidled up to Bush like a whipped puppy after the slime-fight in Carolina…. He was done with the Centrists when he smooched with Jerry Falwel, and he never had any real progressive base.

He’s done let’s get on to the next bozo!

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By nonsequitor, August 7, 2007 at 8:41 am Link to this comment

...so that it would no longer provide fodder for sarcastic headlines. ...They won’t be able to do that anymore, now that I’m getting around from town to town on a Segway.”

ok, so let’s get some sarcastic headlines about his Segway. maybe he’ll have to walk his talk then.

‘totally wireless’ just like his Segway.

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By newssophisticate, August 7, 2007 at 8:11 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

John McCain…shall we say more

Have you heard?

John McCain Toy ReCall

http://newssophisticate.blogspot.com/2007/08/john-mccain-toy-doll-product-recall.html

John McCain selling Straight Talk Express…any takers

http://newssophisticate.blogspot.com/2007/08/john-mccain-to-sell-straight-talk.html

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archeon of thrace's avatar

By archeon of thrace, August 6, 2007 at 7:42 pm Link to this comment

Straight talk express?  Doesn’t “express” imply a quick speedy trip never taking the time to see the sights along the way in a haste to get to a predetermined destination in the shortest amount of time?

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By GW=MCHammered, August 6, 2007 at 9:19 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

[President Bush said that his successful colonoscopy was “proof that invasions work.”]

Both P & VP in surgery the same week? Proof GW’s colon and Cheney’s heart are hitched!

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By farmertx, August 6, 2007 at 8:15 am Link to this comment

Yes, Mr Billis, politics does make for strange bedfellow’s, but those two are beyond the Pale. Noticed that no one has suggested a link to the Manchurian Candidate movie of old.

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By SamSnedegar, August 6, 2007 at 4:50 am Link to this comment

Not just any bus. This one became the “lying sack local” heading for Oblivion, AZ.

I frequently look backward just to see how stupid I was, and I note in this case that I would have voted for McCain over the slimmer but dimmer Gore.

Of course, Gore did know about the internets and global warming even then, but he couldn’t tell a real Cuban boy from a way to go for Cuban votes in South Florida.

Yes, McCain TALKED a good game back in 2000, good enough to fool New Hampshire, but the GOP Bushitters weren’t having any and got themselves a malleable puppet instead of a real candidate who could have WON the election.

Seeing his shameful behavior since, I suspect that McCain got an offer he couldn’t refuse from the Bushitter gang of thugs, and he is yet saying “yassuh boss” to them in hopes they will make him their next puppet, but it isn’t going to happen.

I don’t know how long they can keep the moronic Bush in office, but they will definitely keep him there a long time before they will let some real candidate win and take over their junta as the dictator of America. They didn’t go to all that trouble just to give it up in 8 short years. If they leave the white house, it will be as Milosevic left the state house in Serbia, being thrown out into the street by the Yugoslavs of old, except with the Bush fool, there may be an addition of some tar and feathers in an old American custom.

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By THOMAS BILLIS, August 5, 2007 at 6:08 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)

After you have sold your soul by getting in bed with Bush and Falwell the straight talk express is just a bus.

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