The Year in Review by Dave Barry

[Are_grits_groceries]

How weird a year was it? Here's how weird:

O.J. actually got convicted of something.

Gasoline hit $4 a gallon -- and those were the good times.

On several occasions, "Saturday Night Live" was funny.

There were a few days there in October when you could not completely rule out the possibility that the next Treasury secretary would be Joe the Plumber.

Finally, and most weirdly, for the first time in history, the voters elected a president who -- despite the skeptics who said such a thing would never happen in the United States-- was neither a Bush nor a Clinton.

Of course, not all the events of 2008 were weird. Some were depressing. The only U.S. industries that had a good year were campaign consultants and foreclosure lawyers. Everybody else got financially whacked. So, we can be grateful that 2008 is almost over. But before we leave it behind, let's take a few minutes to look back and see if we can find some small nuggets of amusement. Why not? We paid for it, starting with . . .

JANUARY . . .

which begins, as it does every four years, with presidential contenders swarming into Iowa and expressing sincerely feigned interest in corn. The Iowa caucuses produce two surprises:

On the Republican side, the winner is Mike Huckabee, folksy former governor of Arkansas, or possibly Oklahoma, who vows to remain in the race until he gets a commentator gig with Fox. His win deals a severe blow to Mitt Romney and his bid to become the first president of the android persuasion. Not competing in Iowa are Rudy Giuliani, whose strategy is to stay out of the race until he is mathematically eliminated, and John McCain, who entered the caucus date incorrectly into his 1996 Palm Pilot.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/12/19/AR2008121901343.html?hpid=topnews

Heh!!

[liberal N proud]

1. Dave Barry's sens of humor is great

[pleah]

2. Dick "dick" Cheney

from one of his best articles.

[WyoHiker]

3. THANKS!

[EFerrari]

4. Welcome to DU, WyoHiker.

:)

[skygazer]

5. That was great!

I especially like his rundown of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as his description of Sarah Palin as "a no-nonsense hockey mom with roughly 114 children named after random nouns such as "Hamper."

:rofl:

[Danascot]

6. Best line in the whole piece:

"Meanwhile, John McCain, at a strategy session at a golf resort, tells his top aides to prepare a list of potential running mates, stressing that he wants somebody "who is completely, brutally honest." Unfortunately, because of noise from a lawnmower, the aides think McCain said he wants somebody "who has competed in a beauty contest." This will lead to trouble down the road."

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

[dixiegrrrrl]

7. 2nd best line:

"The stock market plummets further as investors realize that the only thing that had been keeping the economy afloat was the millions of dollars spent daily on TV commercials for presidential candidates explaining how they would fix the economy."