WASHINGTON, D.C. - Addressing a throng of reporters with nothing to report since the entire North American populace lost interest in the story of an aging French plutocrat who diddled an immigrant, a spokesperson for the newly created Office of Daft Homeland Overstatement said that the likelihood of the sky falling is somewhere between orange and chartreuse, the latter hue having been recently added to the no-longer-official Tom Ridge Fright-o-Meter by White House consultants who thought the old rainbow scheme was, in a word, gay.
America's major news outlets worked tirelessly throughout the afternoon to broadcast real-time updates on the absence of anything worth reporting following a magnitude 5.8 earthquake epi-centered just 90 miles from the nation's capital. The quake was felt from Philadelphia to Boston and in the words of MSNBC's Martin Bashir, Mahthuh's Vin Yawd, where President Obama is vacationing to the consternation of hotheads and Hillary Clinton supporters.
Sources close to the President reported that he and Mrs. Obama intend to keep their plans to accompany Sasha and Malia on a planned excursion to The Green Room to peruse the Stephenie Meyer collection.
In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg asked the city's population to stop calling 911 unless they had real emergencies to report. Bloomberg added, "And while I'm up here, I'd like to take this opportunity to distance myself from anything David Letterman ever said."
Only two Republican presidential candidates chose to comment officially on the quake. Michele Bachmann told a crowd of supporters in Wamsutter, Wyoming, that "Anyone who didn't know there were faults in Washington hasn't been paying attention," adding, "This is most likely an act of God, one that He has been waiting to visit upon us for our iniquity since we elected a Muslim to the presidency."
Texas Governor and Just For Men spokesmodel Rick Perry released a written statement, surprising journalists who doubted he could write. In it, Perry cited his state's policy of teaching alternatives to accepted plate tectonic theory. Perry claimed, "Texan kids have a choice. They can believe the 'scientists,' with all their molten core and fractured crust hoo-ha, or they can believe that God, in His wisdom, has sentenced a race of orcs to inhabit the deep and that they, during times of terrestrial unrest, amass great armies beneath our feet that would unleash upon us the fire and anguish tempered in their hellish crucible."
Putative G.O.P front-runner Mitt Romney did not comment upon the event, which surprised pundits insofar as only by comparison to Bachmann and Perry could a guy who believes in magic underwear seem actually rather sensible.