The Daily Background

Here are my predictions for 2007. One year from today, we’ll revisit this post and see if any of these came true (I’d be shocked if any did, but it’s still worth saying).

- Former Vice Presidential aide Lewis Libby manages to “forget” the date of his first day in court and does not show up. This ends up enraging the judge, but ultimately serves to bolster his faulty memory defense in the CIA leak case in which he is charged with 5 felony counts including perjury and deliberately lying to federal investigators (he maintains he merely “forgot” the truth so he told them some lies instead).

- CNN will suddenly stop over-using the “breaking news” label in their lower third.

- Tony Snow will not only start acting more like Scott McClellan, but will also start looking like him too. Watch out for the Press Secretary to lose start gaining a lot of weight and losing a lot of hair. Also, he may shrink several inches.

- Laura and Barney (the first pet) actually do end up being the last two that support President Bush’s handing of the Iraq war. Rumors will later circulate that Barney’s support is may be waning.

- By April 1st, former Virginia Senator George Allen finally manages to convince everyone that he is not a racist after all.

- On April 2nd, former Virginia Senator George Allen gets caught on tape calling somebody the n-word. After it is uploaded to YouTube, He later apologizes indirectly 11 times but insists that he thought he simply “made up” the slur, and meant it as a harmless joke about somebody’s hairstyle. Nobody buys it.

- YouTube gets ever more popular and ABC News’ hyper-investigative reporter Brian Ross (the guy who runs The Blotter) gets his own account, BRoss2007, and begins posting exposes about other YouTube users. He will start his first video by saying: “Hello I’m Brian Ross, and you’re watching the BRoss2007 channel. Anonymous sources tell BRoss2007 that Lonelygirl15 is in fact a hoax.”

- Conservative pundit/columnist Bob ‘Prince of Darkness’ Novak suddenly becomes relevant again, shocking everyone. This is short lived however, as he is abruptly fired from Fox News after blurting out obscenities the likes of which Rupert Murdoch has only dreamt of– after being asked for the millionth time if he knew that Valerie Plame was an undercover agent.

- Karl Rove doesn’t live down his “You may have polling numbers but I have THE polling numbers” remark to an NPR reporter, and spends much of 2007 in one of Dick Cheney’s undisclosed locations.

- Virulently anti-gay former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum turns out to be (you guessed it) … gay. He moves to Colorado to chill with Ted Haggard. Nobody is particularly shocked, least of all Mrs Santorum.

- George Bush Senior dies, and Bob Woodward reveals that the former President confided to him in an embargoed interview that he “very strongly” disagreed with the decision the current President made to go to war with Iraq.

- Disgraced former Congressman Mark Foley turns out not to be gay after all. Everyone is shocked, most of all Mrs Santorum (no one is quite sure why).

- Global warming causes the President’s Texas ranch to become too hot for him during his customary month-long August vacation. After Bush makes a “is it just me or is it hot out here” joke at a press conference, Al Gore steps out of nowhere to offer the most well deserved I don’t want to say I told you so, but I told you so” that anybody in the White House Press Corps can remember in all their combined notebook-toting, Air-Force-One-riding, and tame-question-asking years.

- Democrats increase the minimum wage, lower prescription drug prices for seniors, and increase grants for college students. President Bush claims all of these were originally Republican ideas in the first place. When Nancy Pelosi hears the news while on the House floor, she personally walks up and down the aisle flipping off every one of her distinguished colleagues from red states. Unfortunately though Republicans swear it did too happen, C-SPAN does not catch any of this, due to the preservation of antiquated camera angle regulations. Democrats claim to have no recollection of the incident, but are unable to stop themselves from snickering every time Republicans look at their feet when Speaker Pelosi walks past them in the future.

- Bill O’Reilly’s ratings continue to sink. Fox renames “Hannity & Colmes” to “Colmes & Hannity” in hopes of gaining greater ratings in the new political climate. For some reason this fails to work, and they quickly switch it back.

- A certain NY Senator makes a big announcement (and it won’t be Chuck Schumer).

- A certain IL Senator makes a big announcement (and it won’t be Dick Durbin).

- Arizona Senator John McCain continues to hire every Republican staffer and aide under the sun for his still-unannounced Presidential bid.

- Rudy Giuliani gets divorced. Again. This manages to crush any last hope that he may have had of winning the southern Republican primaries.

- Newt Gingrich gets divorced. Again. Miraculously, his third divorce does not hurt his standing with conservative southern voters- perhaps because nobody thinks he’ll run with Kansas Senator Sam Brownback in the race (well, Brownback not officially yet but just you wait).

- Despite his triumphant re-election, Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman is never heard of again.

- Nothing John Kerry says in 2007 is taken out of context whatsoever by the media or by right-wing pundits.

- Right-wing pundit and author Ann Coulter is convicted of voter fraud in Florida, and as a convicted felon, she loses her right to vote in her home state because of the same disenfranchisement statues that Katherine Harris once used to erroneously disenfranchise tens of thousands of Americans in the 2000 Presidential election.

- Katherine Harris does something (anything) and Wonkette covers it. Nobody is surprised, but many are amused. Lather, Rinse, Repeat^tm.

Got any predictions of your own? Leave them in the comments section.

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