From 1999 to 2004-ish, I was one of the contributing writers for Garrison Keillor's renowned radio show "A Prairie Home Companion." I learned a lot of things there, mostly how to spell 'prairie." It was a solid gig and I'm proud of my work there. But, like any other job, there were...things...
I was disappointed this sketch didn't make it to air. We were coming up to the midterm elections, with the presidential elections after that. The Bush White House then came up with a plan to handle it. Every time there was good news or exceptional polling for the Democrats, the White House would suddenly declare a "Code Orange" to freak everyone out. After 9/11, the administration put together a chart with levels of alert the population should maintain. It ranged from "Go about your business" to "WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!!!!" And every time things would calm down, some bad news would come out about the Republicans and suddenly we were on maximum alert to wipe it out of the news cycle. It was insane and infuriating. And so blatant. And it worked every time. I wanted to call them out on it, in my own little way. This is what came of that.
