Court Orders Feeding Tube Be Removed from Democratic Party

WASHINGTON DC — In a long-anticipated move, a federal appeals court today ordered that the tube providing life-giving nutrients to the Democratic Party be removed.

“It was inevitable,” said George Stephanopoulos, a long-time friend and advocate of the Party. “Everybody knew the Party died a few years ago. This was just a public recognition of that fact.”

The Party had been on life-support for four years, following the onset of a wasting disease that led to the deterioration of the spinal cord and, subsequently, of the cerebral cortex. Physicians say deterioration of the nervous system to such an extent renders normal mental life, such as thinking and feeling, impossible.

“That would explain a lot,” former liberal activist and Democratic Party confidant Jane Fonda said, calling the recent behavior of the Party “inexplicable.”

Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who is under investigation for possible House ethics violations, made similar observations. “It was clear that [the Party] was dying. Sometimes it was so quiet,” he said, “you barely noticed it was there.”

In recent months, family and friends of the Party had rallied to its aid. “We tried,” said former presidential candidate John Kerry, citing the recent election of controversial figure Howard Dean as the Party’s chair. “But the Party we knew is gone. In its place is just a hollow shell of what once was a vigorous, vibrant political group.”

Still, some close to the Party insisted that recovery was possible, citing occasional movement and utterances. “I heard it distinctly,” Niko Strada, relative of the Party, said. “It looked at the buttons on my shirt and shouted, “I waaant.” When asked if he knew what the Party wanted, Strada insisted that it wanted “to live.”

But doctors are skeptical of such claims. Ari Johansen, Chief of Neurology at Mount Sinai Hospital, confirmed last week’s diagnosis. “It’s typical for a national party, after suffering such extensive damage to its nervous system, to still move randomly and even seem to respond to stimuli. But it’s just an illusion.”