An Immodest Proposal: Bring Carnival to Washington, DC

Carnival in Dusseldorf recently offered up Iran's president as a rocket, caught by a United Nations net, (not, ahem, a US net).

I'm surprised that the baker's dozen of CIA agents indicted in Germany for rendition of an innocent German haven't yet made a parade.

Basel, Switzerland throws great punches.  This unique Protestant take begins in a blacked-out city at 4 AM the Monday after Ash Wednesday.  Thousands of costumed pipers and drummers accompany huge gas lit lanterns painted with satirical images of politicos.  I'm betting Dubya will again be the favorite foil, particularly as the Swiss haven't former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi - likened to a hybrid of the Godfather and Il Dulce Mussolini, running his media empire like an Orwellian villain - to kick around anymore, at least as PM.
 
A modest proposal for Washington, DC Mayor Adrian Fenty:  bring carnival.  What city has more fantastic material?  It may not be a religious enclave, but Washington knows how to fake religion.

Small towns in Portugal use carnival to speak truth to power; why can't the nation's capital?  Is it too mean-spirited, too unable to take a joke?  The threat of ridicule at carnival might reign in excesses, perhaps an invasion.

Imagine the floats.  Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, dressed as the Grim Reaper, axes prosecutors pursuing corruption scandals inconvenient for the G.O.P.  Or Cheney the Hunter stalking Joe Wilson, who blew the whistle on the Niger-Iraq uranium nonsense, and his wife, outed CIA official Valerie Wilson.  Perhaps Scooter Libby, dressed as a goat, will be Cheney's prey.  Tribunals for terror suspects - suspects with Rip Van Winkle beards - could sport the robes of the Spanish Inquisition.  White House lawyers might serve as pallbearers for Habeas Corpus.  Former NY Times reporter Judith Miller, as Joan of Arc in jail eating bonbons, entertaining neo-con admirers in an unlocked cell?

Throw in a sampling of Washington Post and New York Times columnists dressed as Paul Revere, shouting that Saddam's WMDs are coming. Michael Gerson, the former Bush speechwriter who came up with “the smoking gun that comes in the form of a mushroom cloud”, has since been hired as a Washington Post columnist. He could appear as either a smoking gun or as a mushroom, or maybe a smoking mushroom.

And carnival's traditional spoofing of sex roles?  Don't get DC started (run for it, pages!).  Dubya, dressed in black vinyl, cracking his whip at hooded detainees in Guantanamo?  A men's bathroom turned into a Senate office annex? Haven’t heard much about the “DC Madam” in awhile? Give her her own float and make her a carnival princess. Carnival’s long tradition of cross-dressing? Have Rudy Giuliani organize a troop, call it the J. Edgar Hoover Brigade.

Religion is a carnival target, and how could it get riper than during the presidential campaign season. Picture a takeoff on Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds", with Mike Huckabee ravaged by Darwin's finches after they finished off Sam Brownback.  Or Mitt Romney and Huckabee holding religious texts and waxing on about the sanctity of life as they hit lethal injection buttons, with Fred Thompson on the execution gurney.