Washington, DC — Responding to Republican charges that President Obama’s proposed budget includes $8 billion for a high-speed, magnetic-levitation train that “<a href=”http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2009_03/017129.php”>will deliver customers straight from Disney . . . to the doorstep of the moonlight bunny ranch brothel in Nevada</a>,” Democratic leaders today unveiled plans for a “<a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOV6siQOwYc&feature=related”>Love Train</a>” that will join “people all over the world.”
“It is not enough that we bring together the Magic Kingdom and the Moonlight Bunny Ranch Brothel,” said President Obama in a prepared statement. “We are not Magic Kingdom states and Moonlight Bunny Ranch states, we are the United States of America. And it is time for the United States of America to take the lead in developing new technologies that will help American families.
“For it is not enough that we build trains that mean fun for the whole family, where Dad can go ‘around-the-world’ and kids can discover that it’s a small world after all. It is time for the United States of America to send a message to our global competitors that we are serious about undertaking new initiatives in transportation and infrastructure, and that we need to start a Love Train. Tell all the folks in Russia, in China too.”
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a spokesperson for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speculated that the Love Train could potentially become the foundation of the Obama Administration’s emerging Middle East policy. Faced with the challenge of how to address the new Netanhayu government in Israel while supporting the creation of a Palestinian state, Secretary Clinton has reportedly been advised to “tell all the folks in Egypt, and Israel too” that the Love Train will be arriving in the region in the near future. “Secretary Clinton needs to send the message as clearly as possible,” said a senior advisor. “Please don’t miss this train at the station, ‘cause if you miss it, I feel sorry, sorry for you.”
Conservative opponents of the Love Train objected that the plan would very likely increase a ballooning federal deficit, pointing to the President’s repeated suggestions that passengers “don’t need no money” and “don’t need no tickets” in order to ride this train. “This train is a recipe for fiscal disaster,” said radio commentator Rush Limbaugh, who was recently appointed the <i>de facto</i> leader of the Republican party. “Obama is basically saying that people all over the world can simply join hands and form a love train, and Americans will foot the bill. And I might add that he’s also sending a message to all of his brothers over in Africa, the land of his birth. Well, I don’t care what the Love Train story is. I would be honored if the Love Train Media headlined me all day long: ‘Limbaugh: I Hope Obama’s Love Train Fails.’ Somebody’s gotta say it.”
A small handful of prominent Republican officials criticized Limbaugh’s “ugly” and “incendiary” remarks and then issued abject <a href=”http://www.dccc.org/content/sorry”>computer-generated apologies</a> within the hour.
{ 34 comments }
MR Bill 03.04.09 at 12:39 pm
I, for one, had been fearing that Satire was in trouble, surfeited in the Dubyah years on facts that made the Onion look like the Christian Science Monitor.
You reassure me…
rea 03.04.09 at 12:44 pm
Th Islamofascists, of course, will propsoe a rival “Peace Train” . . .
Glen Tomkins 03.04.09 at 1:38 pm
And I will follow in my Soul Train.
No, I don’t mean anything Motownish. I mean the conveyance of souls to the next world. All of your Love Trains, and Peace Trains, and that Prosperity Train that is so popular just now, all are just so many conveyances that make it easier for the Four Horsemen to get around and do their work. My train never lacks for ridership, but I expect especially heavy traffic in the near-term.
PeorgieTirebiter 03.04.09 at 1:48 pm
…so, will Dubya’ once again be ridin’ that train, high on cocaine?
Paul 03.04.09 at 2:36 pm
There is pork in this stimulus package and it cannot be denied – both sides put these things in for their own political benefit. That being said I hope that Obama succeeds in turning the economy et al around. If not we are in deep trouble !
Miracle Max 03.04.09 at 2:57 pm
Can we put Limbaugh on the last train to Clarksville?
Perezoso 03.04.09 at 3:47 pm
Harry Reid’s behind the idea, so there’s probably a Mormonic connection: Bunny’s Alcohol-and Tobacco- Free Moonlight-Moroni Express, with the ….King Brigham room– imagine the Golden Plates in the Pepsi Bar, like, where the Sacred LDS temple putas line up for the evening’s bidness…… ………
Misha 03.04.09 at 4:35 pm
People get ready, there’s a train a-comin’!
Dr. Drang 03.04.09 at 4:42 pm
Today the President had some harsh words for the so-called Blue Dog Democrats who allied with Republicans in the Senate to defeat his Love Train legislation. “Did you stand by me?” asked Mr. Obama. “No, not at all. Did you stand by me? No way.”
salient 03.04.09 at 5:20 pm
There is pork in this stimulus package and it cannot be denied
No no, There is pork in this stimulus package and you cannot lie. Them other rationally-minded analysts can’t deny: when they finally get around to passing a well-rounded bill with a little bitty waste, you’ll get sprung.
Michael Bérubé 03.04.09 at 5:23 pm
There is pork in this stimulus package and it cannot be denied
There better be! The day we can’t have pork in our stimulus package, we’ll know the terrorists have won. Really. But we all understand that this is about wingnuts making up increasingly bizarro claims about the budget, right, and airing them out on the Android News Network?
Now I hear reports of a high-speed “Night Train” that will connect a number of cities in the eastern US, beginning with Miami, Atlanta, and Raleigh, NC. Some say it might eventually run as far as Boston, via Richmond, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City (take me home). Lawmakers have been urged not to “forget New Orleans, the home of the blues,” but Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal is apparently cool to the idea.
c.l. ball 03.04.09 at 6:17 pm
The lie also perpetuates because those who have identified it as a lie rely on the same method of evidence: the assertion.
GOP hack: “The bill gives $8 billion to build a high-speed line from LV to Disneyland
Dem. hack: “No it does not.”
Actually, they could look it up. None of the linkers bother to quote or link to the actual bill. With the Intertubes, you could provide evidence.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/F?c111:1:./temp/~c111mxITlD:e286436:
fardels bear 03.04.09 at 6:21 pm
c.l. ball: kindly do not attempt to cloud the issue with facts.
Michael Bérubé 03.04.09 at 6:41 pm
c.l. ball: kindly do not attempt to cloud the issue with pettifogging pettifoggery. Everyone and her brother knows that the bill proposes $8 billion for high-speed rail between cities. It is, in my humble opinion, a very very very good idea. The problem we’re having in the reality-based community, however, is that wingnuts have decided to mock this altogether sane proposal by “making up” (in the sense of “fabricating”) the story that the money is slated for a LA-LV line that will, on their accounts, deliver people to Sin City at Harry Reid’s behest. Now along come the androids at Fox to twist this already tall tale using their extradimensional geography according to which the Moonlight Bunny Ranch is in Las Vegas. (It isn’t. You could look it up!)
Lost in all this silliness, of course, is the possibility that an LA-LV high-speed train might be a very good idea in itself. Instead, we get the seventh-graders in the GOP snickering that Las Vegas is someplace where people have sex. Heh heh. Heh.
Still, you raise a good point when you note that both Democratic and Republican hacks use assertion. Surely the truth lies somewhere in between.
Righteous Bubba 03.04.09 at 6:47 pm
Obviously the train should go half the distance to Las Vegas.
rea 03.04.09 at 6:54 pm
The sad part is, lost in all this brouhaha is the true purpose of the LA-LV line, which is to facilitate the Godly escaping sinful Las Vegas and taking refuge in morally-upright Orange County
Michael Bérubé 03.04.09 at 7:07 pm
Obviously the train should go half the distance to Las Vegas.
Yeah, where’s the love for the Mojave National Preserve? The Democrat party is always talking about “urban areas,” and we know what that means. We demand that Democrats show some respect for rural America! Except when they propose to bring broadband to rural America, because that’s just silly.
lost in all this brouhaha is the true purpose of the LA-LV line, which is to facilitate the Godly escaping sinful Las Vegas and taking refuge in morally-upright Orange County
You’re not saying the train would run both ways, are you? Well, I’ll be hog-tied. Why didn’t Fox say anything about this?
thepuppethead 03.04.09 at 8:04 pm
Of all the worldly passions, lust is the most intense. All other worldly passions seem to follow in its train.” — Buddha
….its LOVE train.
Brianz 03.04.09 at 8:11 pm
Righteous Bubba — We shouldn’t split the difference by having the train go half the distance. We can solve all our problems by splitting it right in half! What’s that mean? MONORAIL!
…
Sorry, mom, the mob has spoken!
Mo MacArbie 03.04.09 at 8:49 pm
So the Republicans warn us of this train in vain?
Michael Bérubé 03.04.09 at 9:40 pm
I was thinking the monorail was more of a Shelbyville idea, but . . . all right, I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll link to Brianz’s idea!
Perezoso 03.05.09 at 12:34 am
an add-on: the Villaraigosa Desert-Zephyr Metrolink, like on some old freight rail, with a few switches, one ending at the edge of the Boron strip mine, every few months launching the suckas out into empty space for a few glorious seconds. Heh. And some boo-coo kickbacks when the peoples got to rebuild the mutha-f-er.
mds 03.05.09 at 3:00 am
Hang on… Has anyone ever seen Michael Bérubé, Chris Clarke, and Harry Reid in the same room?
Because if they were all drunk* and wearing clown costumes at the time, that would be awesome.
*Yes, yes, Latter Day Saints don’t get drunk. They also don’t seek funding for direct night trains to brothels, but that doesn’t seem to have stopped Harry Reid.
Kenny Easwaran 03.05.09 at 5:42 am
One thing I’m proud of us Californians for is that even as my fellow state-dwellers voted away my right to get married, we also voted in $10 billion of spending on high speed rail, which is more than those congressional people could do even in the biggest spending bill ever. I would have been much sadder if Props 8 and 1a had both failed than with both passing, because at least Prop 8 can be voted out some time in the future, while I think that high speed rail would have been in much worse shape if it hadn’t passed in 2008.
addtree 03.05.09 at 11:53 am
“Responding to Republican charges that President Obama’s proposed budget includes $8 billion for a high-speed, magnetic-levitation train that” just because Amtrak (or other train provider) promising more people to be delivered
Michael Bérubé 03.05.09 at 1:46 pm
See, that’s the problem with this short-term HSR planning. If we had built the Love Train instead, there never would have been a Proposition 8.
Ken C. 03.05.09 at 5:59 pm
Lawmakers have been urged not to “forget New Orleans, the home of the blues,†but Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal is apparently cool to the idea.
Isn’t there already the train, they call, the City of, New Orleans ?
Will the Middle East Love Train compete with the train to Jordan? I hear you don’t even need a ticket for that one.
rosmar 03.05.09 at 8:33 pm
I love this post and the comments that follow it more than I should.
Michael Bérubé 03.05.09 at 9:29 pm
There can never be too much love for a Love Train thread. But that City of New Orleans . . . I dunno, I think that train’s got the disappearing railroad blues.
Friar_Zero 03.05.09 at 10:09 pm
Oh, great. Now I’ve got that song stuck in my head and every time I hum it i think of the moonlight bunny ranch.
jacob 03.05.09 at 11:53 pm
You’re not saying the train would run both ways, are you?
We’ll have one long railroad just going east, and one even longer going west. And one more going nowhere, just for show.
JP Stormcrow 03.06.09 at 4:35 am
You’re not saying the train would run both ways, are you?
Well maybe two different trains. This train don’t carry no arbitrageurs, this train. This train do.
James Wimberley 03.06.09 at 5:02 pm
Why be content with mere magnetic levitation? The Love Train must run on spiritual levitation, inspired by ancient Tibetan lore. Virtuous passengers may as a bonus be transformed into eagles; the wicked risk reincarnation as whores catering to Republicans.
Matthew 03.06.09 at 8:42 pm
“So the Republicans warn us of this train in vain”
on a plain in Spain? in the Rain?
Comments on this entry are closed.