ALLAWI HOPES COMICAL USE OF MICROPHONES WILL EASE TENSIONS IN IRAQI POLITICS

BAGHDAD – The months-long gridlock for Iraq’s political future hit a snag on Thursday when, in an effort to lighten the tense mood, Ayad Allawi, leader of a mainly Sunni coalition, got behind a comically daunting wall of microphones and said “Hey look at me! You can’t even see me behind all of these microphones! It’s going to be OK!”

It was a new low-point in an already painful process where political, ethnic and religious divisions are threatening the stability of an incredibly fragile government. “And plus it wasn’t even all that funny,” said one reporter present, “we get it. It’s a lot of microphones. But everybody knows prop comedy is dead. I much prefer the relentless one-liners of Karzai. Man that guy is full of ‘em.”

Tom Reuters, a reporter with the AP, did not entirely agree. “It was kind of funny at first,” he said, “we all got a chuckle… but then it just dragged on and on. The press conference went on for more than an hour, and we thought that maybe they’d address the declining security situation, or the laws keeping suspected Baath party supporters from running for public office, but instead he just kept going ‘you see, this is funny because there are way more microphones then you could ever need. Like, at least ten too many microphones. I’m going to say the same thing in all the microphones, can’t they just share?’ It was embarrassing for all involved.”

Though the Allawi comedy routine had one strong supporter in Vice President Joe Biden, the administrations “super special envoy” to Iraq. “It was fuckin’ hilarious,” he said. “Just look at all those microphones! That is comedy. You see that one all the way on the bottom? There is no way that’s gong to pick up what he has to say. It’s totally silly. Love it. Loooove it.”