Dave Barry's genius graces us again

Dave Barry rolls out his Year in Review for 2008 in the Washington Post. Always good for a laugh, Barry also has a libertarian streak running through his witty and sharp commentary on America. Alas, there seems to be little to no mention of exploding toilets in 2008. This isn’t change I can believe in. After the jump are some of my favorite quotes.

On the Republican side, the winner [of the Iowa Caucus] is Mike Huckabee, folksy former governor of Arkansas, or possibly Oklahoma, who vows to remain in the race until he gets a commentator gig with Fox. His win deals a severe blow to Mitt Romney and his bid to become the first president of the android persuasion. Not competing in Iowa are Rudy Giuliani, whose strategy is to stay out of the race until he is mathematically eliminated, and John McCain, who entered the caucus date incorrectly into his 1996 Palm Pilot.

In politics, Barack Obama addresses the issue of why, in his 20 years of membership in Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, he failed to notice that the pastor, Jeremiah Wright, is a racist lunatic. In a major televised address widely hailed for its brilliance, Obama explains that . . . Okay, nobody really remembers what the actual explanation was. But everybody agrees it was mesmerizing.

As the [financial] crisis worsens, an angry Congress, determined to get some answers, holds hearings and determines that whoever is responsible for this mess, it is definitely not Congress.

Barack Obama, in a historic triumph, is elected the nation’s first black president since the second season of “24,” setting off an ecstatically joyful and boisterous all-night celebration that at times threatens to spill out of the New York Times newsroom. Obama, following through on his promise to bring change to Washington, quickly begins assembling an administration consisting of a diverse group of renegade outsiders, ranging all the way from lawyers who attended Ivy League schools and then worked in the Clinton administration to lawyers who attended entirely different Ivy league schools and then worked in the Clinton administration, to Hillary Clinton.

I also liked the constant references to Fannie and Freddie’s poor use of finances and the press corps’ fascination with Sarah Palin’s blurry past relationship with yetis. Enjoy.