Riotously Funny Parody

It is from the the Onion, and what makes it funny isn't that I think that Senator John Edwards is this stupid--but that I suspect that Edwards thinks the voters are stupid enough that he might try something like this:

AMES, IA—In an effort to jump-start a presidential campaign that still has not broken into the top Democratic tier, former Sen. John Edwards made his most ambitious policy announcement yet at a campaign event in Iowa Monday: a promise to eliminate all unpleasant, disagreeable, or otherwise bad things from all aspects of American life by the end of his second year in office.
"Many bad things are not just bad—they're terrible," said a beaming Edwards, whose "Only the Good Things" proposal builds upon previous efforts to end poverty, outlaw startlingly loud noises, and offer tax breaks to those who smile frequently. "Other candidates have plans that would reduce some of the bad things, but I want all of them gone completely."
According to Edwards, his plan is composed of three steps. Everyday bad things, such as curse words and splinters, would be eradicated during his first six months in office. Next, very bad things, including child abduction, soil erosion, and resurgent diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis, would be ended by the the end of 2009. Finally, extremely bad things—plights such as genocide, species extinction, and virtually every form of cancer—would take a full two years to wipe out.

The tragedy is that back during the 2004 campaign, he came perilously close to this about stem cell research with something that made me think of televangelist/conman Peter Popov:

Democratic vice presidential candidate Senator John Edwards said today, “When John Kerry is president, people like Christopher Reeve are going to walk. Get up out of that wheelchair and walk again”… John Edwards may be learning, late in the game, that what may work for a seated jury in a courtroom may backfire in Peoria.