White House Not To Be Leveled

The Romney campaign today is responding to rumors that the Republican candidate’s plan for the first one-hundred days of a Romney presidency includes leveling the current White House and building a new, much larger structure in its place.

“That’s nonsense,” said senior Romney campaign adviser Barbara Comstock. “We’re perfectly aware of the existing structure’s value as a site of historical significance. It’s not going anywhere.

“The plan simply is to take twelve acres or so of the South Lawn and build a national-scale dwelling place that better reflects America’s commitment to all its peoples, not just some of them.”

Explained Romney press secretary Andrea Saul, “America’s symbolic monuments are absolutely vital to keeping her grandeur always in the hearts and minds of her peoples. Every time an average American looks at the White House, with its six floors and its 55,000 square feet and 132 rooms and all those pillars and all that marble and bluestone gneiss, he gets a new infusion of that heady sense of America’s greatness.

“And that’s great for him, great for the country. But what about the above-average American—the one creating the jobs that allow all the average Americans to achieve their averageness? They’ve got second vacation houses that make the White House look like their third vacation house’s boat house.

“Is it fair that they don’t get to experience all the majesty of America as captured in her national monuments?”

Added Ms. Comstock, “Isn’t it ironic, and in many ways tragic, that the very people most responsible for America’s greatness don’t get to have that greatness reflected back at them in the nation’s symbols?”

Said Ms. Saul, “Above-average Americans are not asking for the moon here. I think they’d make do with perhaps a chateau-style palace on the order of something like 200,000 square feet. Of course all the marble and woods and fixtures would have to be dramatically upgraded, but all we’re talking about is roughly multiplying the wow factor of the current White House by four.

“Average Americans need to look at this if they can from the above-average perspective. Let’s just very conservatively say that the most successful among us make 300 times more than the average American does. And let’s round off the Washington Monument’s height to 550 feet.

“For our national obelisk to serve the job creators to the same degree it serves the job takers, it would need to rise over 33 miles into the sky.

“Put another way, it would take looking at 1,200 giant faces carved into an entire mountain range for the nation’s best competitors to feel the same sense of America’s greatness that Mount Rushmore gives the nation’s also-rans.

“In what vision of America is that fair?”

In related news, Shining City Gazette has uncovered a copy of a lengthy paragraph that was edited from the letter 80 American CEOs recently published in the WSJ in their ongoing efforts to look out after the financial well-being of society by having their own taxes lowered and removing costly strands in the social safety net.

Penned reportedly by Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, the paragraph draws heavily on neoliberal principles in arguing that the bald eagle should have to compete with the golden eagle for the title of the national symbol of the United States.

With regards to the Great Seal of the United States of America, Mr. Moynihan also makes the case that in the unlikely event of the bald eagle beating out the much fitter golden eagle, the leafy olive branch in the right talon should still be replaced with a gold brick.