In an unexpected blow to his presidential aspirations, Senator John McCain injured four of his fingers, two on each hand, after repeatedly making the international sign for quotation marks at a stop in Hershey, Pennsylvania. Campaign officials immediately suspended all operations until a new and safer method of expressing smarmy derision could be located.
Senator McCain, ignoring the advice of doctors concerned about his fingers as well as everyone else under the age of seventy concerned about the inherent dorkiness of the particular gesture, is reported to be resting comfortably in a Hershey hotel tonight.
In a statement to reporters, Senator McCain said, "This is just a small setback. We're currently examining other ways of immaturely mocking Senator Obama that don't include phony quotation marks, including eye rolling and excessive sighing, and we hope to be up and running again shortly."
Senator McCain has made ample use of the mocking quotation gesture during the last few months, most notably during the last presidential debate, where he qualified his obviously deep concerns over the health of women by putting a big pair of bunny ears over the word "health."
But in the last week, campaign watchers have noticed the Senator's use of the two-fingered quote thingy skyrocket. "He's put fake quotes around the words spread the wealth so many times that I thought his fingers were going to just give out, " said one staffer who requested anonymity. "The last time I cried that hard was when I was watching Rudy for the fifty-seventh time on TNT" he added.
Charles "Mac" Edwards, president of the International Association of Unnecessary Quotation Marks, praised Senator McCain's courageous stand. "Usually, our members are known for textual quotation embellishment--you know, World's "Best" Coffee on a menu or "clean" two-bedroom apartment, "includes" electric in real estate listings," he said. "But Senator McCain has raised the bar, bringing the practice into a three-dimensional world we could only dream about."
Today's rally in Hershey started off ordinarily enough, with no hint that Senator McCain would attempt a world record in sarcastic quotation gesturing. But right around the six-minute mark, while poking fun at Senator Barack Obama's "eloquence," as he sneered, Senator McCain found his groove, saying, "You know, when he talked about offshore drilling, he said, 'I did blah, blah, blah, all this (derisive piano playing motion). Then he said...then he said, 'I will consider (finger quotes)...I will consider (more finger quotes) offshore.'"
Sensing his moment, Senator McCain plowed ahead toward the Mount Everest of fake quoting. "He says that he's for (finger quotes) nuclear power," and "That's when Senator Obama revealed he wants to spread the wealth (finger quotes)," and that "one of the tragedies (finger quotes) of the civil rights movement is that it didn't (finger quotes) bring about redistributive change (finger quotes)."
Though clearly winded by that last triple Lutz, McCain forged on. At the ten-minute mark he finger-chided Senator Obama some more, saying, "He favors higher taxes on investment for fairness (air finger thing again)," as well as Senator Biden's belief that tax relief should "only go to middle class people (finger quotes)."
It was this point in the speech that staffers noticed Senator McCain's fingers stiffening a bit. Though he mustered one final snarky finger gesture while discussing Senator Biden's remark on being tested--"mark my words (finger quote)," Senator McCain motioned--he could go no further and hand doctors were summoned.
Only time will tell if Senator McCain can learn a new dismissive trick in time for next week's election. The Senator's brother Joe, who has some expertise in anger management, is reportedly flying to his bedside. Asked for a comment, the younger sibling uttered an expletive and hung up. This reporter can't be certain if any fingers were involved.