Jon Swift's Predictions for 2009

Although I made some eerily prescient predictions for 2007 and 2006, I never got around to foretelling what 2008 had in store for us. Considering how spot-on my election coverage was, especially in such pieces as "Why McCain Will Win," "Barack Obama Should Concede the Nomination to Hillary," "Barack Obama's Achilles Heel," "The Iowa Caucus Results Explained" and "When Giuliani Is President, Every Day Will Be 9/11," all of which proved to be more true than not, it's too bad I did not venture to make predictions for 2008, which certainly would have put me on a par with such perspicacious prognosticators as William Kristol and Dick Morris. So I decided not to make that mistake again and give my dear readers another peek into my crystal ball. I ask only that you use my frighteningly accurate psychic powers for good and not evil.

• President Barack Obama decides that on second thought things are just fine the way they are and he doesn't want to change a thing.
• Axl Rose withdraws Guns N Roses' Chinese Democracy, saying he needs just a little more time to work on it. Sources close to the artist reveal that he especially regretted the lack of cowbell.
• Twitter invents a device that can be implanted users' brains allowing them to tweet every random thought to their followers.
• When Google's stock price plummets, the company announces that it will no longer not be evil, which gets a thumbs up from Wall Street analysts.
• In a desperate bid for attention, Britney Spears does something really embarrassing.
• President Obama paints the White House black realizing the worst fears of some Americans.
• As production costs skyrocket, Hollywood begins outsourcing all of its productions to Bollywood. A three-hour feel-good musical sequel to The Dark Knight starring Amitabh Bachchan is the year's biggest hit.
• YouTube begins a crackdown on really crappy videos.
• A tasty and nutritious new snack food imported from China called Soylent Green becomes wildly popular though no one is quite sure what's in it and the FDA says it doesn't have the resources to find out but trusts the Chinese government's safeguards.
• After crunching the numbers, NBC executives decide that in addition to giving Jay Leno the 10 to 11 p.m. slot, they will replace the rest of the schedule with homemade cable access programming, saving the network millions of dollars in production costs.
• With the benefit of hindsight historians conclude that President Bush really was one of our greatest presidents after all.
• As in-fighting among his cabinet members threatens to derail his Presidency, Obama fires his entire cabinet and replaces them with yes-men.
• With the Minnesota Senate election hopelessly deadlocked, the Minnesota legislature rejects both Norm Coleman and Al Franken and instead appoints Tom Davis.
• Andrew Sullivan breaks with Obama, calling him the Worst President Ever, announces he is supporting Sarah Palin for President in 2012, converts to Islam and urges his readers to wage jihad, divorces his husband and denounces homosexuality as an "abomination."
• Despite losing millions of dollars in a series of high-profile memoirs that turn out to be hoaxes the publishing industry rejects calls to hire fact-checkers to read manuscripts as economically unfeasible and instead institutes a policy to make authors swear on a stack of Bibles and cross-their-hearts-hope-to-die that their books are true.
• Rod Blagojevich's plan to sell his position as a jail-yard bitch to the highest bidder is foiled by a prison stooge.
• Steve Jobs announces that he will resign as CEO of Apple and replaces himself with his little-known brother Raul Jobs.
• After a Pentagon study group recommends changes in the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy on gays in the military, Obama replaces it with a new policy called "Don't Even Ask, Don't Even Tell, I'm Warning You," a compromise that makes no one happy.
• Wii introduces a popular new remote that allows you to play its games sitting down and moving only your fingers.
• Joe the Plumber submits a bill for his time in the spotlight to the American people, who are shocked to discover how high it is. A report by the Congressional Accounting Office reveals that more than half of the charges are for time spent sitting around and waiting for parts.
• Gay marriage activism fizzles as gays decide they would rather just live together instead of getting married, shocking and embarrassing their parents.
• Sarah Palin is ridiculed when a man she has just pardoned is mistakenly executed right behind her as she is giving an interview about the pardon to local news media.
• After weeks of rumors President Obama confirms in a press conference that he's got a basketball jones, which he has had ever since he was a little baby, and will be seeking treatment.
• A shark-jumping contest on an episode of Lost has fans finally giving up on the show for good.
• Jon Swift loses the Weblog Award for Best Humor Blog by just one vote when one of his readers decides that voting is pointless because "everything is controlled by multinational corporations anyway." Vote here to make sure this is one prediction that doesn't come true.

Carnivals: Carnival of Satire

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Why McCain Will Win

The pundits have gotten everything wrong this election year, from prematurely writing John McCain’s political obituary to declaring Hillary Clinton the Democrat nominee to celebrating Fred Thompson as the second coming of Ronald Reagan. But none of these blunders compares to the egg they will be wearing on their faces when the election results roll in this Tuesday, and John McCain becomes the next President of the United States. I think most of the major demographic groups are going to break for McCain, but you don’t have to wait for the Wednesday morning quarterbacking to find out why this will happen because I’m going to tell you right now.

Young People Won’t Show Up To Vote Because They Are Lazy and Stupid

I don’t know who on Obama’s campaign had the bright idea to base their campaign strategy on a huge turnout of young people. Have they actually met any young people? Let’s face it, young people today are the least reliable, laziest, stupidest generation in our nation’s history. If we had known that baby boomers would end up spawning such spoiled, self-absorbed progeny, we would have had them all sterilized. Historically, young people don’t show up to vote, anyway, but this year promises to be even worse. Just as Obama Girl couldn’t manage to vote in the primary because she had to wash her hair or something, most young people won’t be able to summon up the energy to get out of bed or stop playing their video games long enough to show up and vote for Obama. I’d be surprised if these dimwits even know how voting works. On Election Day, I expect, millions of young people will be frantically texting their friends trying to find out the number of the Obama hotline to call to cast their vote. Unfortunately, these idiots are our future. I hope I die before they get old.

Jews, Like Horses, Are Easily Frightened

The McCain campaign has finally hit on a strategy that works: scaring the Jews. It’s a sure-fire strategy because jittery Jews are the most easily frightened people on earth. Boo! If you’re Jewish, you probably jumped just reading that last sentence. It really doesn’t take much. All you have to do is insinuate that somebody knows somebody who might possibly be anti-Semitic and Jews will stampede in the other direction. You don't really need any evidence. Jews have already done half the work themselves by sending around scary emails to each other about how Obama is bad for the Jews because he will destroy Israel the minute he is elected President. Nobody knows how to scare Jews better than other Jews. McCain spokesman Michael Goldfarb might have looked like a manipulative fear-monger and an ass to some people when he started stammering in a recent interview and couldn’t name all the anti-Semitic people he said Obama supposedly knows, but to other Jews Goldfarb looked like a fellow scared Jew who can barely utter a coherent sentence because he’s so frightened. Every Jew knows we are thisclose to another Holocaust, so why take a chance on some guy whose name sounds Arab, when there’s a very nice goy running? Sure, his running mate belongs to a church that thinks Jesus is coming any day now to convert all the Jews, but there is no one who loves Israel more than a bunch of Christians waiting for the Rapture. I expect just seeing Obama’s name is going to have many Jews running out of voting booths screaming like it's Halloween. For Jews, everyday is Halloween.

The Reverse Bradley Effect

Republicans are hoping that all the polls are wrong because of the "Bradley Effect," the phenomenon where white people say they are going to vote for the black guy because they don’t want to appear racist but once they get in the voting booth they just can’t do it. But this year, I think we’re going to see a "Reverse Bradley Effect," where black people say they are going to vote for the black guy because they don’t want to seem disloyal, but when they get into the voting booth they just can’t pull the lever for the brother. When it gets right down to it, black people don’t really trust other black people. When a famous black person gets in trouble, what’s the first thing they do? They hire a Jewish lawyer. And how many rich and famous black people let other black people manage their money or careers? Not too many. If black people won’t hire black lawyers or accountants, what makes you think they are going to hire a black President?

Hispanics Will Remember Why No Se Puede Support Obama

John McCain probably thought Hispanics would line up behind him because he sponsored the immigration reform bill that would have granted amnesty to illegal aliens, but Hispanics have been skittish about supporting him because they know he will probably sell them down the river to appease his base the first chance he gets. Until Election Day, that is. Once Election Day rolls around Hispanics will suddenly remember just how much they hate black people. No one hates black people more than Hispanics (except maybe Asians). Black people give Hispanic people someone to look down on. They even still call them "Negroes" long after everyone else changed to "blacks" and "African-Americans." If a black person gets elected President, the only people Hispanics will have left to make fun of will be gay people. I don’t think they’ll let that happen.

Old People Stick Together

This year old people have a chance to make history instead of just being history. They have an opportunity to elect the oldest human to ever serve as President, someone who is as crotchety as they are. Old people don’t care if their daughter marries a young man, they just don’t want one running the country. And they can sympathize with someone whose rightful promotion is being stolen by some precocious young whippersnapper who doesn’t have the decency to wait his turn. It seems like lately Presidents just keep getting younger and younger and old people think it’s about time someone who looks like them gets in the White House for a change. Ultimately, old people like to stick together, which is why they are going to flock to McCain. You’ve probably noticed that in public places like parks or cafeterias old people tend to gravitate toward one another because they feel more comfortable hanging out with other old people who can understand their jokes and ossified cultural references. They imagine having a President who will say things that go over everybody's head and when young people turn to them and ask them to explain, they will just say, “It’s an old people thing; you wouldn’t understand.”

Men Think With Their…

Palin has had a strange effect on American men. It’s hard to describe the secret of her allure. According to Kathleen Parker, it's why McCain picked her in the first place: "McCain took Palin to his favorite coffee-drinking spot down by a creek and a sycamore tree," she writes. "They talked for more than an hour, and, as Napoleon whispered to Josephine, ‘Voila.’ One does not have to be a psychoanalyst to reckon that McCain was smitten." In The New Yorker Jane Mayer describes how a group of influential conservative men became putty in Palin's hands after they met her on a cruise. Rich Lowry may have articulated it best when he wrote after the debate, "I'm sure I'm not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, 'Hey, I think she just winked at me.' And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America." Ultimately, I think many men will end up voting for Palin and her running mate because men tend to think with their hearts more than their brains. When men see Palin, they can’t describe the effect she has on them; they just know their palms get sweaty and hearts start beating faster.

Women Love a Bad Boy

Women love a bad boy and there was a time when Obama seemed exciting and even a little dangerous, the kind of guy girls would like to bring home to their parents just to scare them. But as the campaign wore on, Obama seemed less and less enthralling. Women began to realize that his cool façade wasn’t keeping a lid on roiling depths of passion; it was just hiding more and more layers of cool. After a while he began to seem so safe and reassuring that women started to get bored with him. And then they took a look at McCain. They realized that he was reckless and impetuous and oh so deliciously risky. Sure, he might snap at you and call you nasty names but he’ll always say he’s sorry afterward and that just makes him more alluring. With McCain as President, you’ll never know what he is going to do next. In the end he may bankrupt you or knock you up (and after he appoints Supreme Court Justices who reverse Roe v. Wade, you’ll be spared from having to make that heart-rending decision about what to do about it), but in the end you know you would make the same choice again even if everything tells you not to. Remember when you picked George Bush over that boring guy who reminded you of your first husband?

Conservatives Finally Have a Reason To Be Optimistic About the Future

Conservatives have always hated McCain for his support of immigration reform, campaign finance reform and moderate judges, and his opposition to torture and the Bush tax cuts, until he changed his mind and kicked his principles under the Straight Talk Express, though not soon enough for most of us. But after he picked Sarah Palin, conservatives took another look at McCain. That was when we noticed that McCain is really, really old and sometimes he doesn’t look all that well (wink!). And then it dawned on us: McCain will probably die in office! We may not be all that happy with McCain, but we are practically giddy at the prospect that he won't last that long. He could even keel over right after the Inauguration. And then . . . say hello to President Palin! The thought of a President Palin sends chills up the legs of many patriotic Americans, and up other parts of their bodies, too. So conservatives will be rushing to the polls fired up by the prospect that a vote for McCain is really a vote for President Palin. When you go into the voting booth November 4, I hope you, too, will picture Sarah Palin sitting in the Oval Office with her Manolo Blahniks propped up on the desk and I betcha you’ll know what to do.

Update: Whoops.

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Jon Swift's Predictions for 2007

Last year I made eight predictions for the year 2006 and nearly half of them came true, a better average than most psychics. As I predicted, there were no terrorist attacks in Wyoming, the stock market did soar to 10,000 and American troops did leave Iraq, "except for the ones necessary to keep order and prevent civil war." My prediction that Vice President Cheney would resign and that President Bush would appoint Joe Lieberman to take his place sort of came true. Now that the balance in the Senate depends on Lieberman, he has indeed become the second most powerful man in the government, so I should get half credit for that one. I think three and a half out of eight is pretty remarkable. So without further ado are even more predictions for 2007:

• The next six months in Iraq will prove to be critical for determining how the following six months are going to go.
• Over the summer President Bush reads Jean Paul Sartre's No Exit.
• Glenn Reynolds will announce that he has achieved Singularity, exclaiming, "This blog is writing itself!" So many people link to this post that it crashes Instapundit's servers.
• Web 2.1 is released and while it contains a few nice new features and plugs some security holes in Web 2.0, overall it proves to be a big disappointment.
• An increasingly bellicose Switzerland announces plans to develop nuclear weapons.
• ThirdLife, a virtual world for those who are bored with the limitations of their mundane existence on SecondLife, will be the year's fastest growing social networking platform.
• George H.W. Bush will announce that he is running for President in a move widely seen as a sign that he is breaking with some of his son's policies though he won't say so publicly. President George W. Bush pointedly refuses to endorse Bush Sr., saying he wants to learn more about his father's positions on the issues first.
• Barak Obama will announce that he is running for vice president.
• John Kerry repeatedly uses the n-word in a joke gone horribly wrong.
• Ted Haggard emerges from counseling ahead of schedule to announce that he is no longer gay, is becoming a Scientologist and that he will divorce his wife to marry Liza Minnelli.
• Pictures of Rudolph Giuliani in drag will surface, scuttling his plans to run for President.
• Congress will do nothing at all about Social Security or health care.
• Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter will team up to launch a coordinated attack on orphans, calling them "careless" and "whiny."
  
• Temperatures will go down in February causing widespread doubt about global warming, but by July there will be renewed calls to do something about it.
• Time magazine will select itself as Person of the Year.
• In the season finale of Lost we discover that it was all a dream by Hurley who wakes up in Bob Newhart's hotel.
• Guns N Roses don't release their album Chinese Democracy.
  
• Rupert Murdoch crashes his computer while trying to load a page in MySpace and angrily sells the company.
• Increasing strife in the blogosphere leads to the appointment of a Blog Study Group, which proposes dividing the blogosphere into three autonomous Liberal, Conservative and Moderate blogistans.
• Jimmy Hoffa's body will be found in Elvis Presley's grave.
• Recruitment shortfalls lead the Pentagon to hire temps to fill some positions and outsource some work to the Indian military.
• In a historic meeting in Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners sit down together at the table of brotherhood. (However, it's possible that this meeting, which was rescheduled from 2006, may have to be rescheduled for 2008.)
• Beasts ferocious with hunger will cross the rivers, the greater part of the battlefield will be against Hister. Into a cage of iron will the great one be drawn, when the child of Germany observes nothing. I'm not sure what this means, if anything.
• Although my bold prediction last year that "people will develop superintelligent brains that allow them to communicate telepathically and everyone will travel around using fuel-efficient jetpacks" did not pan out (in fact, I think we might have moved backwards in terms of brain capacity), I am very optimistic about this year so I am repeating this prediction for 2007.
• Finally, whatever happens in 2007, you can be sure it would have been a lot worse and more people would have died if we had done something else.
  

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