Roberts Nomination Withdrawn

In somewhat of a surprising move, the White House announced today that it is withdrawing the nomination of John Roberts to the US Supreme Court. The move was especially surprising as Roberts had been accumulating almost universal acclaim from individual senators as he has been holding a series of meetings with them. Even Democratic Senators such as Joseph Lieberman have had positive things to say about Judge Roberts after meeting with him. White House Press secretary Scott McClennan announced the withdrawal today and was roundly jeered by the White House press corps with chants of "Liar, liar, pants on fire..." However, everyone was shocked when Judge Roberts later met with the press and confirmed that in this rare case, McClellan was actually sent out to tell the truth. Not surprisingly, Roberts was perplexed by the move. "I never got a straight answer from the president on why, Bush mumbled something about not being able to come up with an acceptable nickname for me and then he trailed off." Cheney then told me that my growing acceptance by senators was proof that I did not meet the qualification standard as set by this administration. "We don't nominate anyone for important positions unless they are unequivocally unqualified for the job. Why do you think we put out the word last week that we were considering nominating someone to the Supreme Court who wasn't even a lawyer? Hell, look at me. The only qualifications for vice-president are that you follow the president's lead and that you are ready to fill in if the president should die. Everyone knows I tell Bush what to do and I've got one and a half feet in the grave. We now have a secretary of state who has shown herself to be totally incompetent in running a large organization or in matters of diplomacy. We're trying to ram through a guy to be our Ambassador to the United Nations who has even less diplomatic skills than Condi and is on record with saying that blowing up the UN building would not be a problem. The Energy Department is run by former CEOs of Big Oil. The EPA is run by major polluters. Chris Cox (R-Fortune 500) is our choice to run the SEC after having been our point man in Congress in pushing legislation to weaken any laws that protect investors and to push laws that protect our friends who run companies like Halliburton and Enron. And Defense? Rummy scares ME...the guy makes Dr. Strangelove look like a peacenik." Roberts then related how in a state of shock he asked Cheney how an entire administration can be based on putting the exact wrong person in every important position. Cheney just winked at Roberts and said, "You have met the President, haven't you?"