THIS JUST IN from investigative reporter Andy Borowitz:
Bush’s Pants Spontaneously Combust
President’s Pants on Fire during ‘60 Minutes’ InterviewPresident George W. Bush narrowly escaped serious injury last night when his pants spontaneously burst into flame during an interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes.�
Millions of Americans who tuned into the CBS news program to hear the president explain his rationale behind sending more troops to Iraq instead witnessed a freakish incident of spontaneous combustion.
All seemed fine at the outset of the interview, with no hint of an impending inferno, but then Mr. Bush “opened his mouth,� according to one eyewitness.
As soon as the president began speaking, wisps of white smoke started to emanate from his pants region, and within seconds his trousers were fully ablaze.
As flames began to lick the president’s inner thigh, a stagehand could be heard in the background shouting, “Pants on fire! Pants on fire!�
The District of Columbia fire department arrived at the CBS studio minutes later and extinguished the President’s pants before the fire had a chance to spread to Andy Rooney.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal) said that Mr. Bush’s penchant for setting his pants on fire may prevent him from making future State of the Union addresses to Congress, since his pants might be in violation of the House’s new ban on smoking.
But according to historian Davis Logsdon of the University of Minnesota, the spontaneous combustion of Mr. Bush’s pants is not without precedent: “Donald Rumsfeld’s pants were on fire for the last six years.�
There’s more so read the whole thing. And check out Borowitz’s latest so-silly-it-must-be-real book:
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.