September 4, 2012

Jerry Polner - Guest Writer

When asked to give an example of the Republican ticket’s leadership on
international affairs, Romney-Ryan foreign policy assistant Skippy Smith today
criticized the Russian punk group Pussy Riot, whose members were recently
sentenced to two years in prison for an unauthorized performance in a Russian
Orthodox Church. “We’ve looked into this,” Smith said. And we think this group
is just plain un-American.” When reporters reminded Smith that the members
of Pussy Riot were born in Russia, live in Russia, and have never claimed to be
American, he replied, “Exactly. They won’t show their birth certificates. That
proves my point.”

Smith went on to attack the group’s name. “If they had chosen to
call themselves American Pussy Riot, or Pussy American Riot,” Smith
explained, “We would’ve been much more inclined to support them.” In an effort
to recruit more college-age voters for Governor Romney, the Republican National
Committee has tried out the term “American pussy” on various focus groups,
Smith noted. The reaction so far has been very favorable, particularly among
non-gay, inebriated students in the lowest quartile of their class, a demographic
that the Romney-Ryan team has been making important inroads with.

Smith also stated that as an alternative to using some version of Pussy Riot to
court college students, Romney-Ryan has looked into using it with older voters.
But for the over-65 demographic, the word “riot” has bad connotations. Focus
groups of seniors have indicated that “Pussy Disturbance” or “Pussy Kerfuffle”
would be much more welcome.

When asked if Romney had an issue with the substance of Pussy
Riot’s criticism of President Vladimir Putin, Smith replied, “Christ, no. Anything
that’s good old American red-baiting we’re totally down with. We invented that
stuff. That’s why as a final offer, we said to them: Hey. Girls. Just change your
name to Anti-Communist Pussy and we will totally sign on. And they just looked
at us. It was as if they didn’t speak English.”