The News Can Always Be Verse

Civics in rhyme, one more time

Foley's Folly

Higgledy Piggledy

Congressman Foley's lewd

IMs to youngsters show

He's quite the louse.

No one's applauding, but

Oxymoronically

This sleazeball's conduct might

Bring down the House.

- - -

Pontiffication

Satire's best when the facts are so cool

That you needn't exaggerate stuff.

Such was the case when the

pope, in a school

Put the Islamic world in a huff.

"How dare he imply that we're

violent folk,"

Muslim leaders cried out in one breath.

He'd better apologize, say he misspoke

Or face rioting, bombing, and death.

- - -

Was It Allen Good Faith?

Senator George from the state of Virginia

Is now in the midst of a terrible din

'Cause it looks like he judges you not by

what's in ya

But by your ethnicity (color of skin).

Calling a swarthy young man a "macaca"

Proved bad when it turned out the word was a smear.

So, whining a bit, like the Wookiee Chewbacca,

Georgie apologized, sounding sincere.

But then he was asked if he might be part Jewish --

Did his family ever engage in conversions?

He answered with anger and, turning quite bluish,

Alleged that the question was "casting aspersions."

So now he's embracing his Hebraic roots

Fearing the fallout this cultural bomb'll cause.

Maybe next week he'll start wearing long suits

And sidelocks and beards and fancy new yarmulkes.

-- -

The Torment of George

Bibbledy-babbledy

Bush, known as W,

Multi-task president

Tough to the core!

Manages ably to

Simultanistically

Torture the language and

Prisoners of war.

- - -

Ach-Ma-DEEN-Eh-Zhad. Gezundheit

I bet you guys are thinking

There's one fire I won't fan:

No poem can withstand the name

Of the leader of Iran.

It's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad!

There, I wrote it! Okay, fine!

(Alas, I put the name

In the not-for-rhyming line.)

Let's take a shot, see what I've got:

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad!

I fear this next line's doomed to fail

Like some TV spinach ad.

Okay, that was pretty weak

The situation's getting dire.

There's got to be a solid rhyme

For this Holocaust denier.

Wait -- maybe that's the very key!

By Jews, this man is cursed.

Who cares that he denies, they say . . .

If we deny him first:

Ahmadinejad, schmahmadinejad!

- - -

A Hatful of Mistakes

Remember the anthrax scare back in oh-two

And the way that the government tried to construe

The facts so they fingered one man (and we bought it):

The stuff was so pure that an expert had wrought it.

'Twas a Maryland chemist the government chose --

They trailed him so close they ran over his toes!

They put out his name so that everyone knew it

But now, um, it looks like they totally blew it.

The anthrax, it seems, is quite easy to find

No expert was needed. A man was maligned.

So I'd like to wish Steven J. Hatfill good health.

(I'm thinkin' he'll soon have no problems with wealth.)

- - -

Regarding a New Report Saying the War in Iraq Has Increased, not Decreased, Islamic Extremism

Our fight against terror

Might be in error.

Gene Weingarten's e-mail address is weingarten@washpost.com.

Chat with him online Tuesdays at noon.