early and awkward

President Obama Breaks Panderometer

We’re sending you a bill for $200,000.

A short while ago at Daily Intel headquarters, we were startled by the loud sound of shattered glass. The windows looked fine. The mirrors in the bathroom were okay, too. The life-size glass sculpture commemorating the time Rick Perry received a bottle of maple syrup was untouched. Finally, we realized: The Panderometer, an 80-year-old device we keep in a far away corner of the office, had exploded.

Mostly, we ignore the Panderometer; pandering is so commonplace in politics that it’s hardly even worth pointing out anymore. But the Panderometer must have picked up something extraordinary today. After some searching, we were able to pinpoint the pander in question. It happened during a Univision forum this afternoon, when President Obama was asked what his biggest failure has been as president so far.

Much as the Japanese never built the Fukushima nuclear reactor to withstand a 9.1 earthquake, we at Daily Intel never intended the Panderometer to survive pandering blatant enough to actually make the audience laugh at the person pandering to them.