Top 3 Political Pranks of 2009 A comedy article
by Johnny Plankton 3,948 26 12/25/2009 11:58 PM 2409 views
What's funnier than political pranks? To be honest, it's usually enemas, hip fractures and certain forms of cancer, but every year a couple of pranks involving politics provide us with a few chuckles (or at least a stodgy "Well played, Sir!").
As usual, political pranks tend to be played on -- SURPRISE! -- conservatives, who, as science tells us, are born minus a funny gene. Although there were no Hall of Famers this year, like the prank phone call perpetrated by the Masked Avengers (two DJs from Montreal radio station CKOI) on guffaw-magnet Sarah Palin last year, there were a few noteworthy achievements. Here are our Top 3 Political Pranks of 2009.
1. The Yes Men Prank the U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Sometimes I ask myself: Why can't I do pranks like this? The answer: I don't have balls the size of Jupiter. Premier political pranksters The Yes Men teamed with activists The Avaaz Action Factory to stage a fake U.S. Chamber of Commerce press conference, announcing that the Chamber had reversed its stance on climate change to support the Kerry-Boxer Senate bill. The prank duped CNBC, Reuters, The New York Times, and the Washington Post, among others.
At one point, a spokesperson for the real Chamber of Commerce storms the room and announces: "This is fraudulent!" and begins accusing Yes Man Andy Bichlbaum of being an imposter. It gets really absurd when he attempts to prove that he is with the "real" Chamber by producing business cards. Gee, I never thought of that identity confirmation deal-sealer.
2. The "Billionaires for Wealthcare" Singing Prank
The American Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) have been playing one of the longest running pranks on Americans for some time now. Known as the "Die in Debt Prank," unsuspecting American families are driven into bankruptcy at the rate of one every ninety seconds, as the insurance companies surprise silly victims by telling them their policy doesn't cover THAT illness. Hilarity ensues; death follows!
In response, a prank group calling themselves "Billionaires for Wealthcare" infiltrated the closing keynote address of the AHIP convention, and burst into this song:
3. The URL Shortener Redirection Prank
This year the Republican National Committee decided to go Web 2.0, launching a redesigned GOP.com, as well as GOP.AM, a bit.ly-like URL shortening service that's designed to let conservatives share links across Twitter and other social media sites.
"GOP.AM provides an excellent tool for Republican activists to demonstrate brand loyalty," proclaimed Political Media, the developers of the URL shortening Web site, at the site's launch.
Immediately after this statement, the site was pounded by liberal pranksters, who used the free service to create thousands of prank links, spreading them across the Web like herpes. Imagine clicking a link with a GOP.AM address, and instead being redirected to the site for NAMBLA, or ALT.com (a bondage Web site), or STORMFRONT (a neo-Nazi white power website).
Or maybe those were actual links created by GOP members. Hard to tell.
According to a Wired story, Political Media said they knew the service would be used for pranking. "We were well aware that this was going to happen," they said. Sounds a lot like Pee Wee Herman when he dumped his bike in front of the other kids in Pee Wee's Big Adventure: "I meant to do that."
How was the ACORN prank not #1? I'd never heard of any of these. The ACORN prank made national news for multiple cycles. Plus, it involved a (fake) pimp and his ho', tax invasion, hidden cameras, and more. How much better could it have been?
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