HOME Eclectic	The greatest political joke of 2006 I thought that this practical joke was hilarious. And obviously politicians, surprise, surprise, did not think so... What am I talking about? Well, read this report from Brussels from just a few days ago: By RAF CASERT, Associated Press Writer Thu Dec 14, 6:55 PM ET BRUSSELS, Belgium - Suddenly and shockingly, Belgium came to an end. State television broke into regular programming late Wednesday with an urgent bulletin: The Dutch-speaking half of the country had declared independence and the king and queen had fled. Grainy pictures from the military airport showed dark silhouettes of a royal entourage boarding a plane. Only after a half hour did the station flash the message: "This is fiction." It was too late. Many Belgians had already fallen for the hoax. Frantic viewers flooded the call center of the RTBF broadcaster that aired the stunt. Embassies called Belgian authorities to find out what was going on, while foreign journalists scrambled to get confirmation. "Ambassadors who were worried asked what they had to tell their capitals," said Senate Chair Anne-Marie Lizin. "This fiction was seen as a reality and it created a catastrophic image of the country." RTBF defended the program, saying it showed the importance of debate on the future of Belgium. But the network won few friends. Even the Jean-Claude Juncker, the prime minister from neighboring Luxembourg, was angry and let it be know at the opening of the European Union summit. "This is not the kind of issue you play around with," he said. The RTBF's phony newscast reported that the "Flemish parliament has unilaterally declared the independence of Flanders" and that King Albert and Queen Paola had left on the first air force plane available. The broadcast showed jubilant demonstrators waving the yellow-and-black flag with the Flemish Lion outside the legislature. A small crowd of monarchists rallied outside the royal palace waving the Belgian flag. Reporting that the royal family fled did not go down well at the palace, which said in a statement the hoax was in "bad taste." "It is totally unacceptable," said Vice Premier Didier Reynders. Remember that joke about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq started by some guy a few years ago. Yeah, I mean the same joke that cost thousands of troops their lives, not to mention the lives of over 100 thousand of innocent Iraqi civilians, mostly women and children. I don't recall too many politicians protest that it was really a bad joke. You know why? Because the joke was not on them. The joke was on those who died in Iraq. But when a joke is on politicians, no matter how innocuous... well, that's a totally different matter. That is something that requires the attention of the European Union summit!
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