Any day now, an obit will be appearing in the newspaper. It’ll read:
“Irony, a perfectly useful literary device, died today, having been on life support ever since being dragged behind the barn and beaten savagely by members of the Bush administration. It was really old.�
Irony has suffered a number of debilitating beatings during the past six years, such as the president’s “Clear Air Initiative,� which would have increased air pollution. Or his “Healthy Forests Initiative,� which opened millions of acres of public woodlands to commercial logging.
Or “Mission Accomplished.� That was a good one — a draft-dodging president playing a war hero and declaring “mission accomplished� in Iraq. How’d that work out?
Anyway, after six years, you’d have thought we’d about seen it all.
Forget that.
Let’s talk about signing statements.
Mike Argento, a York native and graduate of York Suburban Area High School and Penn State, first came to the York Daily Record in 1983. He even had gray hair back then. After stints covering everything from cops to city hall to state government to the environment, he began writing a column for the paper, three times a week, in 1989. His column can be about anything and so is his blog, which encompasses life in York County and beyond. And, for the record, as he told his wife the other night, he wishes people would stop asking him, 'What's wrong with you?' He really doesn't know. 