The White House is dispatching the prince of gloom, Dick Cheney, to New Orleans on Thursday to help soothe the region’s hurt. (Insert punch-line here.)

This morning Maureen Dowd is first up to bat in the Cheney trip punch-line contest, with this preemptive swipe:

Later this week (no point rushing things) W. is dispatching Dick Cheney to the rancid lake that was a romantic city. The vice president has at long last lumbered back from a Wyoming vacation, and, reportedly, from shopping for a $2.9 million waterfront estate in St. Michael’s, a retreat in the Chesapeake Bay where Rummy has a weekend home, where “Wedding Crashers” was filmed and where rich lobbyists hunt.

Maybe Mr. Cheney is going down to New Orleans to hunt looters. Or to make sure that Halliburton’s lucrative contract to rebuild the city is watertight. Or maybe, since former Senator John Breaux of Louisiana described the shattered parish as “Baghdad under water,” the vice president plans to take his pal Ahmad Chalabi along for a consultation on destroying minority rights.

But why let Dowd and the surely salivating late night comics have all the fun with Cheney’s trip? This is a set-up so ripe for fun-making, even a Slog reader could do it. So…

A Slog contest:

Complete this sentence: “Sending Dick Cheney to soothe the hurt of New Orleans is like…”

Send entries to eli@thestranger.com, and I’ll post the top ten on Thursday in honor of Cheney’s arrival in the Big Easy. And my fellow Slog posters, feel free to use your competitive advantage to post your entries early.