A source close to the Obama administration says President Barack Obama has reversed an earlier position and will now consider an appearance as a contestant on the popular ABC series “Dancing With The Stars.”
The source claims the recent announcement that former Republican congressman Tom DeLay will appear as a contestant on the program led to the president’s change of heart.
“The president has been trying to dance with Republicans since taking office,” the source stated, “and he believes this may be the opportunity to demonstrate he is serious about it.”
The source went on to report that the president has been secretly working on a special dance routine, which the source says is a variation of the more familiar two-step.
“Obama calls it the ‘side-step,’” the source stated, claiming it’s been something the president has been working on since transitioning from the campaign to the Oval Office.
“Obama believes he’s getting better at the side-step, though he admits he stumbles occasionally,” the source said. Insiders who have attended practice sessions with advisers, believe the president has stumbled consistently enough that he may simply choose to incorporate the stumble into a final, polished dance routine, which he would then rename, “the public option.”
Several aides and cabinet members are said to be working with Obama on a variety of routines. Press secretary Robert Gibbs is said to be an expert in Kabuki dance, whereas Secretary of State Hillary Clinton favors what she calls the Clinton Tango, in which the lead-and-follow structure of the traditional tango abruptly changes to allow the dancers to go off in all sorts of different directions at once.
The source also said that Vice President Joe Biden weighed in with a dance step of his own, “but by the time he got through explaining it, there was no time left to practice it.” (It turned out to be nothing more than the veep’s version of the hokey-pokey.)
In a related story, Sarah Palin has denied expressing an interest in following fellow Republican DeLay onto the dance floor, claiming the elitist DTWS judges amount to a “dance panel.” When reporters asked Palin staffers exactly what Palin meant by that, reporters were met with the increasingly familiar blank stares. Palin had also stated, with somewhat greater clarity, that all the hours of practice needed to be competitive tended “to cramp her personal work ethic.”
In another related story, C-Span and Ken Burns announced plans to bundle the comic ballet of the House and Senate healthcare floor debates into a multi-part PBS Special miniseries. MSNBC’s “Hardball” host Chris Matthews is slated to narrate the series, tentatively titled “Dancing With Lobbyists.” A spokesperson for Burns acknowledged the healthcare insurance industry offered a “co-op” type of sponsorship grant for the series, but analysis showed the co-op arrangement, in fact, offered nothing, and the offer was quietly declined.
