Is the AP Hiring Modern High School Students?

I am beginning a new, perhaps very temporary, column as a much-needed stress-reliever from my usually ponderous research papers. Lately, I began noticing that the Associated Press is posting many articles with broken or incomplete sentences and poor grammar. After noticing Time Magazine’s April cover entitled “Drop-Out Nation,” regarding the 30% national high school dropout rate, I wondered what happened to all those undereducated victims of our socialist education system. Did they all get hired by AP? So I decided to begin posting their bloopers a la Eats Shoots & Leaves. (Please feel free to join in with your own explanation of what AP meant to say.)

A recent AP story on Fox News ends with:

Tensions spilled from the streets to the halls of Congress on Friday, when lawmakers from Lopez Obrador's party the podium of the legislature and blocked Fox from delivering his final state-of-the-nation address.[1]

Assuming that the writer purposefully changes tense twice in the sentence, I think I figured this out.

This illustrates the essential condition of today’s left: they party everywhere. After the recent court ruling on Mexico’s presidential election, they decided to “party the podium” in order to block Fox’s speech. Of course, who wants to hear another boring political speech when the podium could be put to much better use? Maybe they’re onto something. Maybe we should nominate the next presidential candidate based upon how well they can “party the podium.” Can John McCain grab the microphone stand and hop across the stage with it between his legs like Stephen Tyler? Especially if such behavior can relieve us of Mexican influence on our border security?

Well, maybe it’s a bad idea. The last time we had a rock star president was Bill Clinton, who certainly knew how to “party the podium.” He also knew how to party the Lincoln Bedroom and the Oval Office, much to our national embarrassment. Referring back to the AP quote, partying is obviously intended to be a stress reliever, and we all know how much Bill was stressed out by that “Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy.”

Let’s just hope the poor podium isn't wearing a blue dress.

[1] Associate Press, Felipe Calderon Declared President-Elect of Mexico, Fox News, September 5, 2006. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,212140,00.html