On the Reappointment of John Snow as Secretary of the Treasury

deadline poet

By Calvin Trillin

This article appeared in the January 10, 2005 edition of The Nation.

December 22, 2004

The people in the know said Snow
Was someone who would have to go.
The dollar's at an all-time low.
On Wall Street, numbers fail to grow.
And jobs have not begun to flow
Enough to help the working Joe.
The White House leakers weren't gung-ho
On Snow. They called him just so-so--
A schmo who operates below
A level that is apropos
For one whose job it is to know
Just how to make the markets glow.
But as Snow packed his portmanteau,
The White House said he'd undergo
A second four-year term. Although
It might be nice to help our dough
And mitigate the debt we owe
And take the market to, not fro,
Big changes we will now forgo.
It's loyalty Snow has to show.
Snow says he thinks, like Bush & Co.,
That taxing rich folks is de trop.
Unlike O'Neill, he won't say no
To cockamamie schemes they throw
His way. He's Bush's fiscal ho.
So maybe we'll see Bush bestow,
In one more night-is-day tableau,
A Freedom Medal on this schmo.

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About Calvin Trillin

Calvin Trillin is The Nation's "deadline poet." He has been a staff writer for The New Yorker since 1963 and has written the syndicated weekly column "Uncivil Liberties" since 1986. He has authored many, many books, including Tepper's Not Going Out and Deadline Poet: My Life as a Doggerelist. more...
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