George W. Bush Years
The
2000 presidential election yielded the pre-election "I Want a Brand New Pair of Candidates" and several other songs about the aborted recount. The popular impression of
George W. Bush's intellect, fed by his frequent grammatical errors in speeches, allowed the Capitol Steps to reuse much Dan Quayle material. Immediately after the events of
September 11, 2001, jokes aimed at the president or American politics no longer seemed appropriate to the general public. The group cancelled most of their performances for the next several weeks. The group soon found new material that people would find funny in October 2001. The group poked fun at the improved national view of Bush and at figures who were becoming more relevant to the American public, including
New York Mayor
Rudy Giuliani,
British Prime Minister
Tony Blair, and
French President
Jacques Chirac. Heightened security nationwide soon became a popular subject for the Capitol Steps and other comedians in the wake of media reports that travelers were being questioned in airports for having powdered sugar from a
donut on their clothing. In 2002 and 2003, their material lampooned
SUVs and their drivers,
Hans Blix, the collapse of
Enron, the standoff with
Saddam Hussein,
Condoleezza Rice, Democratic hopefuls for the
2004 presidential nomination, the capture of Saddam Hussein, same-sex weddings, the
Kobe Bryant trial, and the
California gubernatorial recall election (in which they reused "The Fondler"—a Clinton-era parody of "The Wanderer"—with
Arnold Schwarzenegger as the target). Since 2004 the Capitol Steps have remained topical with their parodies, releasing songs about the marriage of
Prince Charles and
Camilla Parker Bowles, U.S. immigration-reform-law proposals, and the
Tom DeLay scandals. On December 18, 2007, group co-founder Bill Strauss died at his home in McLean, Virginia of
pancreatic cancer. ==Obama years==