Obama Abandons Principals, at School Picnic

ANNAPOLIS, MD— President Barack Obama abruptly left a Department of Education picnic on Saturday, and in the process deserted some of the country’s most cherished principals.

The event, held at Annapolis High School, was organized as a means of celebrating American learning and wisdom and the people who help to cultivate it. After meeting with the nation’s standout students, parents, and teachers, Obama was in the middle of talking with a group of principals when his Blackberry alarm sounded.

“Oh damn,” he muttered, and then turned to the people assembled around him. “You know, I’ve got a lot to do—running the country, dealing with Republicans, you know—and I’ve got a singing lesson in twenty minutes.” He then began to quickly walk back to the presidential limousine while warming up with The Sound of Music’s “Do Re Mi,” to the bewilderment of those he had just left behind.

“I don’t understand,” said Lawson Goode, of New York City’s St. Francis Elementary School. “During his campaign he talked constantly about building up this country’s principals, but then ditches us when we become an inconvenience.”

The walk-off was not the first such incident. Obama began his term with a vow to restore the principals held in detention by rogue students of the school district established on Guantanamo Bay, yet the district itself remains under the jurisdiction of vice administrators. Tensions heightened earlier this month when he suspended one principal, Prudence Libby of Denver’s Rocky Mountain High, over inclusion of the War Powers Act in her school’s civics curriculum.

The reaction to Friday’s incident split along party lines, with Democrats largely applauding the President for his pragmatism. Said Vice President Joe Biden, “It’s unfortunate the way it played out, but being President comes with the responsibility of making tough decisions, and I think siding with song and dance over principals was the right call.” He went on to add, “Barack does an extraordinary rendition of “America, the Beautiful.” Members of the President’s liberal base voiced their displeasure, but were told to raise their hands if they wanted to be called on to speak.

Republicans meanwhile castigated the President for not doing away with principals altogether. “These are people who have no problems restricting Americans’ freedoms with arbitrary rules, such as ‘no running in the hallway,’ and ‘4th graders eat at 11:10, 5th graders at 11:15,’ for completely inexplicable reasons,” said former Bush advisor Karl Rove. “I really want to know, can we trust the judgment of someone so deferential to abstract principals?”

The President later apologized to the offended parties by way of an autographed “Yes We Can” poster.

[Cross-posted from The Washington Fancy]