Bush Kidnaps North Korean Propaganda Dream Team

Washington, D.C., March 9, 2006 -- With President Bush's popularity ratings continuing to break all-time lows in nationwide opinion polls, the administration has taken the unusual step of kidnapping North Korean leader Kim Jong II's world-famous propaganda "dream team" in an effort to reverse the downward trend.

According to White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan, the Kim Jong II team will be instructed to take over certain key public relations responsibilities including "talking points distribution, infraction white-washing, message enhancement, terminology purification and media outlet reprogramming".

The Bush administration hopes Kim Jong II's propaganda experts, who have managed to maintain a nearly 97% "adulation rate" for North Korea's "Great Leader" even in the face of widespread starvation, unemployment, international condemnation and occasional cannibalism, will manage to work the same miracle for the embattled United States president. Mr. McClellan will remain official press secretary, but will now take orders directly from the Kim Jong team, rather than from his former managers Karl Rove and Dick Cheney.

"We're delighted, of course, to add these experienced personnel to our media relations department," said Mr. McClellan. "They have shown a remarkable ability to triumph over the adversity of negative publicity through many years of North Korean tribulations, and have consistently demonstrated an almost super-human loyalty to their leader. And that's what we're looking for, here at the White House."

The Bush Administration and the Republican Party have now been under fire from both sides of the aisle for at least a year, starting with increasing dissatisfaction with the Iraq nation-building experiment, rising energy costs, hurricane management mishaps, unqualified crony appointments, the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo scandals, numerous policy failures, corruption at all levels of government, and a string of indictments for charges ranging from insider trading to treason.

"The Kim Jong II crew – we're thinking of calling them the 'Jongoists' – ought to help clear up all of those misperceptions," said Mr. McClellan. "We have the highest confidence in them and their abilities. They're about the most patriotic, highest motivated collection of media experts I've ever set eyes on."

The so-called Jongoists were acquired together with families and children from the North Korean leader in a nocturnal stealth raid performed by members of the elite Air Force Special Tactics unit.

"It went like butter," said Capt. Chip Chad, tactical unit commander for the mission. "We flew in low in a stealth chopper, rope-dropped into the compound, muzzled the cargo and were out within four and a half minutes, ninety seconds ahead of schedule. The Great Leader never knew what hit him."

The Jongoists are comprised of a 14-man team of highly polished North Korean media professionals, including commentators, filmmakers, sound specialists, speech-writers, set designers, policy groomers, and specialized "opinion sculptors" whose multifaceted range of talents includes both electric, chemical and physical methods of persuasion.

"We're particularly interested in rebuilding the unfairly tarnished image of the White House," said Mr. McClellan. "We think a lot of that tarnishing has been the fault of disloyal media outlets, such as Fox News and the Weekly Standard – venues we've always been able to count on 110 percent to relay our message, but who've been falling down on the job lately. The Jongoists have the capacity to provide clarity and urgency to our rhetoric, and the muscle to see that it gets distributed through the proper channels."

"And with the Jongoists' families in tow," McClellan continued, "we're quite confident we'll get them to wholeheartedly accept and effectively relay the purity and justice of our doctrine, and the benevolence, compassion and wisdom of our own 'great leader'. It's really just a matter of pushing the right buttons."

By Ion Zwitter, Avant News Editor