Whirled News - Whirled News Ticker Tape

An exhausted and visibly discouraged Mitt Romney withdrew from the Republican presidential race yesterday, announcing that, “We simply ran out of issues on which I could change positions.”

Supporters of Romney made a last-ditch effort to persuade him to remain in the race, pointing out that he could go back over the list and start changing his positions again, but in the end Romney demurred, saying that that would only call into question the principles which his square jaw exemplifies.

“We ran a good campaign,” he told his supporters. “My ever-shifting positions clearly showed that I was the candidate of change. But in the end the Republican voters chose to reject expediently heartless conservatism for rock-hard heartless conservatism, and we must respect their verdict.”

Romney announced that he would take some time off to attend to pressing family issues. “Early in the campaign, in response to a question about why my fighting age sons didn’t enlist to fight in Iraq , I said that they were serving their country by helping me campaign for President,” he said. “Now that I’ve withdrawn from the race, I have to help them find some duffle bags and start packing.”……

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice today ended her surprise visit to Afghanistan , returning home with two tons of crushed rubble. Confronting her critics who accused her of looting the country of its most valuable resources in order to build a new road outside her estate, Rice insisted that this was part of the long-promised United States rebuilding effort of the country.

“We have spent the last seven-and-a-half years since we promised to rebuild Afghanistan carefully considering how to best do it,” she said, “And these two tons of crushed rubble represent the beginning of a bold new initiative. We did not want to go about this the way we did in Iraq, by merely shipping two pallets of large denomination bills and passing the money directly out to corrupt officials [this is true]. Instead, under a contract with Halliburton, they will haul out tons of rubble in the next few years, sell it here and do something with some of the money to help rebuild some things over there.”….

Senator John McCain spoke yesterday to a national convention of conservatives, re-establishing his conservative credentials.

“Frankly, it’s a mystery to me how I could have ever been branded a liberal,” he said. “All I ever did remotely liberal was to propose some campaign financing reforms that turned out to be useless, and to propose some really high bars before allowing immigrants to attain legal status instead of arming our border patrol with conventional nuclear weapons. Oh, and I argued ineffectually against some tax cuts for the rich, but I’ve changed my mind on that one. I still believe that abortion should be illegal, that government should get out of the business of helping any poor and disabled who aren’t vets, that we should stay in Iraq for at least a few decades while fighting other wars under the cover of spreading democracy, and that business, not morality, is the engine that drives our country. Calling me a liberal is like calling Rudy Guiliani a liberal or like calling an elephant a flying machine.”