"Ladeeees and Gentlemen!" Ringmaster Karl Rove again cried from the brilliant circus spotlight. "You have been tickled and amused by the lovable, laughable McCainzo the Clown, and now I am pleased to bring you our next thrilling act!" he announced to his rapt audience of political reporters and pundits.
"Prepare to behold something heart-stopping! Something death-defying! Something spectacular and spectacled!" Ringmaster Rove thundered, throwing his arms wide open as if to give the onlookers an enormous hug. "Behold... the lovely, the amazing, Sarah Spectacle!"
The audience of journalists erupted in paroxysms of child-like jubilation as the spotlights lanced down from all angles onto a tightrope stretched a hundred feet in the air. Already perched there in the middle was the dazzling Sarah Spectacle, grinning wildly, clad in nothing but glasses and an American flag bikini. As if on cue, the din of roaring approval from the crowd promptly shifted to a furious, baritone, seat-quaking chant of "USA! USA! USA!"
Ringmaster Rove again bellowed over the loudspeakers, "Aaaaaand also... joining our star... to raise the perilous stakes even higher... will be none other thaaaaaaan..." Rove raised a hand in the air, "McCainzo the Clown, Ladies and Gentlemen!" A final spotlight switched on, dramatically searched the dusty circus floor, then finally discovered the farcical McCainzo, chained to the ground a hundred feet beneath Sarah Spectacle. McCainzo waved with a white felt-gloved hand, triggering an outpouring of adoring giggles from the audience.
Then, without warning, Ringmaster Rove screamed, "Bridge to Nowhere!" At that instant, from one end of the tightrope, a beefy circus assistant in a jumpsuit fired up a chainsaw and threw it as hard as he could at Spectacle's head. She snatched the deadly machine from the air, just milliseconds before it surely would have cleaved into her broadly smiling face. The audience jumped to its feet with a collective gasp. McCainzo enthusiastically clapped through his chains at the amazing stunt.
"Earmarks!" shouted Ringmaster Rove through the stunned silence of the circus tent. This time, the assistant hurled a hatchet at Sarah Spectacle. Again she plucked certain death from the air, still balancing on the tightrope, high above McCainzo and the hard, unforgiving ground. The audience broke from its silence and again exploded with frenzied cheers, the reporters and pundits all excitedly looking at one another and babbling with collective amazement.
"Pregnant daughter!" Rove this time cried, and Spectacle caught a stick of lit dynamite with the same hand that held the hatchet. "Orrrrrrrrrr is it..." Rove suspensefully called to the crowd, "sexism?"
The crowd stared with confusion as Spectacle lobbed the hissing dynamite into their midst. They shrieked and jumped frantically out of the way, but alas, Keith Olbermann and Chris Matthews were too slow to respond. With a sharp clap of TNT, the hapless pair were scattered throughout the tent like political campaign balloons, ribbons, and confetti.
The rest of the audience regarded the scene of terrible death for a shocked moment. Then, like a crashing wave, they all fell at once into the biggest round of applause yet.
Ringmaster Rove clasped his hands together and cackled like Rudy Giuliani. He turned again to face Spectacle and quickly barked, "Record as governor! Record as mayor!" as the assistant threw a bowling ball and a feral cat at Spectacle. With practiced perfection, she heaved the chainsaw and the hatchet straight up into the air, caught the bowling ball and the feral cat, then started juggling all four dangerous objects while still balancing on the trembling tightrope. The journalist audience stomped their feet, slapped the floor, and pulled their hair with otherworldly exuberance.
Seconds turned to minutes as the performance continued. Spectacle's juggling hands began to sweat and shake. Minutes turned to a grueling half-hour. Her knees began to buckle, and her balance began to wobble.
Suddenly, the bowling ball drifted horrifically from its arc. The crowd pretended not to notice. It plummeted like a terrible bomb and slammed into the floor, just inches from McCainzo's head. Sarah Spectacle kept smiling furiously as she juggled the remaining objects, her glasses slowly sliding down her nose from the sweat and constant movement.
McCainzo cast a nervous glance up at the control room. A voice in Spectacle's wireless earpiece spoke up. "Uh, Sarah?" it nervously began. "We're going to need you to, uh, start to end the act pretty soon. Like now."
"End the act?" she replied through her vice-grip grin, the growling chainsaw nearly slipping from her sweat-slicked hand. "We never rehearsed that!"