Obama Reading Biography of Vlad the Impaler. May Decide to Insert Sharpened Sticks Up Rivals' Asses.

WASHINGTON - In what could signal a major departure from the conciliatory tone of Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team Of Rivals, aides to President-elect Obama today confirmed that he is reading a biography of 15th century Balkan ruler Vlad Tepes. Vlad, who on St. Bartholomew's Day 1459, impaled 30,000 citizens of Brasov for corruption, dined beneath their corpses, then left the putrefying cadavers hanging outside the city walls as a warning, is considered by many Progressives to have provided the only workable model for how to deal with K Street.

An Obama spokesperson was quick to dismiss any thoughts of impaling. Though, off the record, expressed a wish that at some point in the next four to eight years they might come upon Joe Lieberman in the act of bending over.

Beltway pundits had been speculating that because Obama has read biographies of both Andrew Jackson and Aaron Burr he might withdraw the offer of Secretary of State from Hillary Clinton and fire a pistol ball at her. Though David Broder cites Obama's reading of Julia Child's The French Chef Cookbook as evidence that Obama will be more inclined to demonstrate to the junior senator from New York how to prevent egg yolks in hollandaise sauce from scrambling.