Washington DC, July 28,2002: Officials at the International Registry of National Irony Content (IRONIC) announced today that the United States’ allotment of the vital literary tool has been completely exhausted by the current administration. The Registry had issued repeated warnings during the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal that the nation’s stock was running dangerously low and current trends pointed toward complete depletion by 2006, but few in American politics paid the dire prediction any heed. However, after George W. Bush was appointed President in 2001, the irony-guzzling power of American politics increased tenfold, and IRONIC Chairman Ira “Nick” Bernstein confirmed in a press conference this morning that the last drop of irony had been squeezed out of the international reserve.

The long list of irony-vacuums created by the Bush administration included John Ashcroft—a long-time opponent of women’s rights in general and especially of reproductive choice—being appointed Attorney General and having to oversee the investigation of Eric Rudolf, the home-grown terrorist suspected of bombing numerous family-planning clinics. Bush’s get-tough drug policies as Texas Governor coupled with his own shady history and the recent legal woes of his daughters and niece was also high on the list of irony-draining events, Bernstein said. And finally, many experts also point to the international hot-spot of Israel as a key culprit in the US’s ironic troubles. “When the Israelis bomb a housing district, it’s called ‘self-defense’, but when a Palestinian does it, it’s called ‘terrorism’,” Bernstein explained, shrugging his shoulders and holding up his hands in befuddlement.

The final move that rendered the irony reservoir bone-dry was when President Bush announced a national crackdown on corporate fraud. With Bush being the son of an oil tycoon and having questionable dealings with the Harken Corporation in the 80s, and his Vice President, Dick Chenney, having been a notoriously corrupt and cut-throat CEO himself, this statement caused a Code Five alert at IRONIC headquarters. Bernstein explained that a Code Five is the highest level of ironic emergency on the Registry's alert system and went on to add that, with the nation's stock now completely gone, another such incident, "...would prove catastrophic. We're talking biblical proportions, here," he stressed, "...dogs and cats living together, and that type of thing".

Bernstein ended the press conference with dire warnings given in an exasperated tone. “Here at IRONIC, we’re at a complete loss,” he told reporters. "If the administration continues with the current trend and does something like appointing Jesse Helms to head up a gay-rights committee in Congress, we could be looking at a total, global ironic melt-down. The space-time continuum could be thrown into flux and the Earth might even fall out of orbit.”