Enraged by what he considered to be unethical behavior by the Mark Sanford machine in the campaign against his sister, Elizabeth Colbert Busch, comedian Stephen Colbert used his top-rated cable comedy show to challenge the disgraced former governor to a cardboard cutout duel. Stephen charged that Mr. Sanford’s attempt to link his sister to House Leader Nancy Pelosi was disingenuous and misleading.
Arriving at the Charleston airport at 7:06 A.M. the next morning, Mr. Colbert immediately took a limo to MUSC. He was followed by two large panel trucks carrying props, video equipment, and crew.
Stephen was shocked to see that Mr. Sanford had already set up shop and was actively engaging the enemy. Mark waxed eloquently about the New York-Hollywood based conspiracy against clean, wholesome Mom n’ Pop Culture…“A conspiracy led by the likes of Stephen Colbert! Stephen Coal-Bear…who refuses to pronounce his own God-given surname correctly!”
“Sounds like a FREEDOM FRIES situation to me!” shouted the newly-elected congressman.
!!!COL-BERT!!!
Now that’s an AMERICAN NAME!” he sputtered.
???COL-BEAR???
What the heck is that? It sounds FROGGY to me.
Oops! I meant FRENCH!”
Members of the audience could be seen nodding their disapproval at the French Connection.
Stephen was clearly fuming as he paced nervously up and down the sidewalk, his crew working feverishly behind him. Finally, he glanced back and saw that everything was ready. Striking during a pause in Mark’s breathing, Stephen stepped up to his first cardboard cutout display and hollered…
“Mark Sanford owns eight thousand shares of Apex Crash Test Dummies!”
“They’re the world’s largest manufacturer of crash test dummies. His shares are worth right at $386 thousand bucks!”
“I don’t know about you, but it strikes me as unethical that Mr. Sanford has also invested rather heavily in a well-known St. Louis beer company which is actively engaged in a subliminal advertising campaign designed to encourage…
DRUNK DRIVING!”
Stephen’s assistant quickly flipped the cardboard cutout to reveal a picture of Mark astride a Moped giving a ride to a sheep.
“FURTHERMORE!”
He Yelped!
“Mr. Sanford has been linked to a gang of moped-mounted rustlers terrorizing sheep ranches throughout the state.”
“Speaking of mopeds. Rumor has it that Mr. Sanford has been working behind the scenes to lower the legal intoxication reading from .08 to .05. According to “authorities”, this move would decrease alcohol related automobile accidents.”
“Well, Duh? Think of all of the lost driver’s licenses. What happens when someone loses their license to drive? ”
“They rush out and buy a MOPED! Could this explain why Mark Sanford has invested so heavily in Moped Futures?”
“Damn if it doesn’t sound as if the good congressman has a lot of irons in a lot of different fires and all of them smell like corruption…Just sayin’…”
Sensing that he was losing the crowd and seeing that Stephen had collapsed from excitement, Mark started up his second presentation of the day…
“As you all know Stephen maintains a home on Sullivan’s Island. What you may not know is that he has a rather strange habit of walking up and down the beach in various styles of INFLATABLE COSTUMES…at least one of which appears to be female.”
The crowd murmured in astonishment and disgust but, not to be outdone, Stephen gestured wildly as supportive members from a local AME church choir blew on vuvuzelas…
Accompanied by pom-pom waving cheerleaders from the College of Charleston, Stephen rushed to his next cardboard exhibit and commenced to lecture the crowd.
CHILDHOOD OBESITY!” he yelped. “What more need I say? Mark Sanford as Governor did more to provide assistance to the fast food industry in avoiding and postponing regulations designed to make this industry more accountable to a hungry public!”
Sensing that he was winning the battle, Stephen didn’t waver a bit. Instead of yielding to a frustrated, blubbering Mark Sanford, he continued his attack!
“MARK SANFORD IS NOT A PATRIOT,” squealed Mr. Colbert. Ladies and gentlemen...here is your proof!”
Stephen then held aloft an oversized reprint from the local newspaper.
“Congressman Sanford ran a full page ad in the Charleston Post and Courier comparing himself to South Carolina’s own Col. William Travis who famously drew a line in the sand at the Alamo and asked those who would fight with him to cross that line.”
“Mr. Sanford then urged his embattled followers to, and I quote, “cross the line and fight with me.”
“We did some genealogical research and discovered that Mr. Sanford did, in fact, have an ancestor who fought at the Alamo in March of 1836.”
“Marco Hector Ruiz Sanfiordi was a great great great great uncle of Mark Sanford. He was a full Colonel in the army of Santa Ana at the Alamo. He played a crucial roll in those last few days when he arrived with a regiment of flying monkeys. It was bad enough that the heroic defenders were running out of ammunition and that pissed-off, bayonet wielding Mexicans were rushing at them from every direction.
“Thanks to Mark Sanford’s distant relative, these brave men also had to deal with flying monkeys flinging rocks and poop.”
“BULLSHIT ON THAT!” hollered former Governor Sanford who launched into an attack on Mr. Colbert for what he called “underhanded tactics.” Mark charged that the comedian had been spying on him for several weeks prior to their downtown showdown through a “rip in the space-time continuum.”
Mark huffed, “That’s some really low shit and about what you’d expect from a hoity-toity Porter-Gaud alumnus.”
2big2fall.wordpress.com 
Leave a comment