News item: President George Bush will give Parliament a miss when he visits Canada next week. His official says he doesn’t want to risk being booed.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen of the press. Welcome to our morning briefing on day two of the President’s trip to Canada.
I trust you slept well, and didn’t mind the change in hotels at four this morning. As some of you already know, the heating system kicked in at 3:48 a.m., causing a humming in the radiator that the President and three senior advisors agreed sounded like a moan or a groan. And I’m sure you’ll agree that we’re better safe than sorry.
Please pay attention, now, because today’s itinerary has been changed substantially. The tour of a local high school originally planned for 10 a.m. has been cancelled because of what our intelligence indicates is a credible threat of teenage angst at that venue.
As well, our plan called for the President to deliver the speech he would have delivered to Parliament, except to a room of heavily-sedated seniors at a bingo in Vanier. This audience was deemed much too risky, and the speech will instead be read by the President’s stunt double Biff who will be alone in a lead-lined room located in the old Diefenbunker, not far from Carp, Ontario. Review copies of the speech will not be available, but we will be able to brief you extensively on how well it would have gone over.
In addition, the trip later this week to Halifax is cancelled. We’ve seen pictures, and it looks mighty gloomy. Instead, the entire remainder of the President’s state visit will be conducted in a film studio in front of a blue screen, onto which we will composite the kind of bucolic and patriotic scenes that a downer little socialist backwater like Canada just can’t seem to muster. ‘Kay?
Finally, my deputy press secretary is handing out a list of suitably cheery words we expect to see high up in your leads, as well as more depressing words that should not be used by any reporter expecting to ever again have access to the President, the White House or indeed to daylight.
Okay? Let’s head out. And big smiles, everyone. Big smiles.
