Once upon a time...

(From the DCRTV.com mailbag)

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Once upon a time in a place called Washington there was a man named Marion
Barry. Marion Barry hated another man named Tony Williams, who was also called
The Mayor. One day, Marion Barry said, "I hate Tony Williams so much, I will
run for City Council! Someday, they will have to stop calling Tony Williams
'The Mayor'." And so he did. And the people in a place called Ward 8 voted for
him. Soon people will have to call Marion Barry "City Councilor." But he really
wanted them to call him "Mr. Mayor." So he watched and waited. But there was
also a woman named Linda Cropp, and no one really knew who she was. She wanted
people to know who she was. So she said, "I will pretend to support Tony
Williams." What she really wanted was for people to call her The Mayor. Then
everyone would know who she was. But if people were going to call her The
Mayor, then she would have to find a way to get them to stop calling Tony
Williams The Mayor, because there can only be one Mayor. But there are many
people called City Councilor, and Linda Cropp was in charge of all of them.
Suddenly, Linda Cropp had an Idea. So, one night, she waited and waited until
it got dark, and then she undid a promise about something called Public
Financing that Tony Williams had made to some men who were going to come and
play baseball in Washington. Tony Williams had worked for a very long time to
make a deal with the people who play baseball. Linda Cropp hated the thing
called Public Financing. Linda Cropp told everyone that she didn't hate Tony
Williams and that she was only protecting the people who lived in Washington,
and who vote for The Mayor. She said that she was Only Doing Her Job. So, the
very next morning, Tony Williams woke up and said "Ow, my head hurts." Another
man named Tom Boswell woke up and was very unhappy. He said "Ow, my head
hurts." He gets paid to write things down for everyone else to read, after they
pay 35 cents. So he wrote down all about how unhappy he was, because of the
woman named Linda Cropp. People in Washington paid their 35 cents, and read
about how unhappy the man was. Another man named Bug Selig was also unhappy,
but he was not available for comment. And everyone in Washington knew what that
meant. Nobody would be coming to Washington to play baseball in the summertime.
And somewhere, in a place kind of far away called Baltimore, a very evil man
called Peter Angelos was laughing, because now, more than ever, Peter Angelos
loved Public Financing. And he found that he kind of liked Linda Cropp, too.

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