Doug Clark: News nuggets need to be dipped in disbelief

America just can’t get enough fake news these days.

Television shows like Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report,” which spoof the political events of the moment, have become huge hits.

And now The Onion, the satirical Web site and newspaper, is producing online videos to help satisfy the nation’s appetite for bogus reportage.

If you haven’t seen The Onion, check it out at www.theonion.com and prepare to laugh.

The Onion is truly a work of genius.

On Wednesday, for example, the site featured a fabulous faux story about a Secret Service agent who bravely took a hostile inquiry intended for the president.

“Anthony Panucci is being called a hero after intercepting what could have been a critically damaging question aimed directly at President Bush during a press conference in the Rose Garden Tuesday.”

Hilarious!

This gave me an inspiration.

I’ll bet the readers would love it if I just totally made up a handful of random, wild-and-crazy “Onion style” fabricated news nuggets at the expense of our area.

So get ready for some completely imaginary reports such as …

“Appellate Judge John Schultheis believes a rapist who gawked at a woman in a downtown Spokane restaurant toilet stall should have his voyeurism conviction overturned because the peeper may not have looked at the woman long enough before she pulled up her pants and ran.

Scholars say that the legal argument is based on an archaic section of the law known as “the 5-second rule” for dropped food items.

“After police discover 93 pounds of stolen bras and panties in his Pullman home, Garth M. Flaherty, 24, reportedly tells police he “has a problem.”

To which the entire region utters a loud and collective:

“NO, DUH!”

“Sylvia Ceniceros, 35, became a front-runner for Spokane’s Most Forgetful Citizen after not being able to explain how a pipe bomb got into the backpack she carted into the Spokane County Courthouse Annex.

“I didn’t even know it was there,” Ceniceros told a reporter during a jailhouse interview. “It didn’t belong to me. I don’t know who put it in.”

Ceniceros is also rumored to have trouble keeping track of her car keys and TV remote control.

“Expressing his indignation during an animal control squabble, Spokane City Councilman Brad Stark tells Mayor Dennis Hession “I seriously am tired of the lies … .”

Hession counters by telling Stark: “I’ll put my credibility against yours any day. And don’t you dare ever call me a liar again.”

In related “hello, pot, this is kettle calling” news, Councilman Stark is fined $500 by the state Public Disclosure Commission for unreported campaign funds.

“After 12 University of Idaho students are arrested roaming inside the halls of an abandoned Colfax hospital, one of the Dopey Dozen opens his mouth and virtually guarantees that the Moscow-based school will never be mistaken for Harvard.

“One of our buddies told us that it was an old mental hospital, obviously an urban legend or whatever,” writes the student in an e-mail.

“We were there to check it out, and because there were no ‘no trespassing’ signs and doors were open, we didn’t think anyone would care if we went in and checked it out.”

“Citing decades of police scandals, lying politicians and economic bad luck, Jimmy Marks says the Gypsy curse he hung over Spokane after an illegal 1986 police raid is working better than ever.

To which the entire Spokane community uttered a loud and collective:

“NO, DUH!”

Oh, well, I tried.

Unfortunately, everything I came up with is just too far-fetched and insane even by The Onion standards.

Sorry. Nobody’s dumb enough to believe this stuff.