SALTY PETERS COMEDY

Obama, Feds to take over Hot Wheels
“The time has come for Hot Wheels to take responsibility”

Washington, D.C. – In an unprecedented move on Saturday, President Barack Obama announced the federal take over of Mattel’s flagship automotive brand, Hot Wheels. What was originally set to be a lazy Saturday afternoon of family photo ops in the Rose Garden, Obama shocked everyone with an impromptu press conference announcing the hostile government takeover. “After analyzing the current product line of Hot Wheels cars, it is my determination that many of the current models are unrealistic and unsustainable as we move into a 21st century of green vehicles.”

An administration official, commenting on the condition of anonymity, acknowledged that President Obama is concerned about the false sense of optimism these futuristic cars may give the consumer. “President Obama is so highly attuned to the public, given the fact that his ears are the size of satellite dishes. So he knows that people, especially young kids, actually think that cars will one day look like this. He doesn’t want people getting false hope that these cars have a snowballs chance in hell of ever hitting the production line. It’s a problem that we need to nip in the bud while we still can.”

Hot Wheels to concentrate on creating realistic models
Hot Wheels has long been known as an innovator; long at the cutting edge of the die cast miniature car industry. Although the company had taken a small hit in retail sales this past year as a result of the recession, it was relatively small in nature, and the company was positioning itself to make a strong rebound in the second half of this year. “We were anticipating rolling out the 2010 models in grand scale, but this new take over is forcing us to rethink our time tested strategy of building cars that look like alien space ships.”

As with General Motors, the Obama Administration has said that it isn’t interested in running the day-to-day activities of yet another car company. However, with nearly a 75% ownership stake in Hot Wheels, to government will be tempted to implement more of its own policies, including unionizing all the plants and forcing management to actually speak to it’s hourly workforce rather than continuing to practice of referring to them as “the hourly workforce” thereby dehumanizing them and affording management the luxury of feeling nothing when it laid them off and stripped them of a salary and health benefits.

Republicans shocked, outraged at abuse of presidential power
In typical fashion, the leaders of the Republican Party did the rounds on Sunday morning talk shows blasting the recent actions of the Obama Administration. Appearing on Meet the Press, Senator McCain called the new plan “yet another example of how President Obama intends on sending the country down the crapper through socialism, fascism and pretty much any other type of –ism you can think of.” When asked how he would have approached the perceived problem of Hot Wheels creating unrealistic cars, Senator McCain replied with stunning honesty.

“It’s likely that given my age and physical condition, the burdens of the office would have killed me within the first 100 days. But we could count on a VP Palin to hand out more tax breaks and subsidies to Hot Wheels and to the American taxpayers. That’s how you stimulate the economy, my friends. In over 200 years, tax breaks have never failed in helping the economy. And I should know, I’ve been around since the birth of the nation.”

Criticism came from the unlikeliest of places as well on Sunday. Governor Sanford, the embattled governor of South Carolina took time from rebuilding his broken marriage to take cheap shots at the President. “I think it is incredibly irresponsible of President Obama to leap into something like this without weighing the consequences. Next thing you know, he’s going to be taking over Trojans and forcing us all to wear condoms during sex. Actually, you know, I probably should have double bagged it with that Argentinean broad. Damn it!”