WASHINTON, DC – The President’s recently announced High-Speed Rail Project is now the target of ill-concieved Republican scrutiny.

Claiming there is little money in the budget for such an initiative Congressional representatives have taken to referring to the program as the High Speed Snail Project. Other names floating around conservative staffers on The Hill are the Nigh High Speed Rail Project, the Thigh-High Greed Fail Project, and the more obtuse and non-rhyming Robot Super Death Train Project.

“You forget, I was there. I was there when the first transcontinental railroad was built in 1343. It was a technology that changed the planet. It took us 500 years to figure out how to use it, but once we did… whoo-wa it was a dandy,” said Senator Robert Byrd via Whoopi Goldberg’s character in Ghost. “But we don’t need it anymore. We have rocket packs!”

The validity of the late Senator’s comments has not been taken seriously by anyone in the Obama administration. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney dismissed the comments as being totally absurd and classified Senator Byrd’s remarks as “made-up.” When pressed further for comment on the Republican plan to de-rail the program through rhyming trickery, Mr. Carney abruptly left the briefing room, seemingly unable to withstand the pressure.

In an effort to strike back at Republicans, the White House Press Office later distributed what they feel is the strongest case for a High Speed Rail system in the form of DVD copies of the Denzel Washington blockbuster “Unstoppable.” Part sly comment on their commitment to high speed rail, and part roaring, non-stop, ball-busting, edge-of-your-seat action extravaganza, the DVD seemed to quiet concerns from the other side of the aisle for the moment.

But mere days later, Representative Michele Bachmann and other members of the shadow government movement labeled the Tea Party made calls into various news outlets encouraging reporters to “check out the deleted scenes.” A redacted version of the script, highlighting the redacted parts, was distributed, but nothing could be made of the redacted scenes as they had been tragically and recklessly redacted.

Rep. Bachmann had only the following to say: “I mean, it’s a bad movie. Have you seen ‘Murder on the Orient Express?’ That’s the kind of shit that happens on trains. Not crazy fun adventures. MURDER. You know what happened to the Boxcar Children? They starved to death because they couldn’t afford food. They spent all their damn money on that boxcar!”

-B. Whetstone, the whettest of stones.