I’m going to found my own cable news network, and we’re going to have award-winning election coverage. I spent Tuesday evening in the Daily Illini newsroom watching election results on CNN and MSNBC, networks I usually pay little mind. We had these channels on because we are a top-tier bastion of journalism, and also because “The Simpsons” had ended at 5:30.

I shrewdly observed some key ingredients to proper election-night coverage. For example, you need to have a serious and responsible anchor named something like “Wolf Blitzer.” This is a name that connotes the important message: “My parents did not understand English.”

I’ll also need a catchy slogan to keep viewers watching, something like “Fair and Balanced” (Fox News), “The Best Political Team On Television” (CNN), or “There Will Be A Story About Transsexuals After The Commercial” (MSNBC).

So I will scour the country for people with names like Bobcat Smasher, Gunner Lynx, and Vulpine Puncher. Then I will put them in front of a giant screen, on which I will show brightly-colored graphics. My anchors will have specific instructions to speculate as wildly as they would like. Aside from that, I would just let them go.

Gunner Lynx: Welcome back to our election night coverage, featuring “The Most Fair and Balanced Transsexual Political Team On Television.” I’m joined here in the studio by Vulpine Puncher.

Vulpine Puncher: Happy to be here, Gunner. Good to see you got paroled.

Gunenr Lynx: Well, those kids should have stayed off my yard when I was practicing with my crossbow. Now as you can see on this screen behind me, Hillary Clinton won a large horizontal bar in Arkansas, but it is not as big as the large horizontal bar won by Barack Obama. What does this mean?

Vulpine Puncher: Well, Gunner, this means our graphics department messed up, because Clinton actually won Arkansas.

Gunner Lynx: We’ll have to keep an eye on that. And what about these pie-like circles behind me?

Vulpine Puncher: Those are pies. You’re standing in front of the catering table.

Gunner Lynx: Fascinating stuff, Vulpine.

Vulpine Puncher: I am going to wildly speculate that some of the pies are French Silk.

Gunner Lynx: You are really going out on a limb there. We go now to Bobcat Smasher, reporting live from one of the candidates’ headquarters. Bobcat?

Bobcat Smasher: Yes, I’m here at Giuliani headquarters, where just minutes ago the electricity was turned off.

Gunner Lynx: And that is because Giuliani dropped out a week ago, is that right?

Bobcat Smasher: That is the exciting political speculation, yes.

Gunner Lynx: Anything else happening there?

Bobcat Smasher: Well, they bolted the doors a couple days ago, so the cameraman and I have been stuck in here, and we’re almost out of Chew-se Rudy promotional candy bars.

Gunner Lynx: And those are…

Bobcat Smasher: Mostly nougat, Gunner. Another day and the cameraman and I are going to have to draw straws to see who eats who.

Gunner Lynx: Don’t you mean “who eats whom”?

Bobcat Smasher: It’s too early to speculate.

Gunner Lynx: Thank you, Bobcat. We turn now to Missouri, where Clinton and Obama are running neck-and-neck.

Vulpine Puncher: Yes. It is coming down to the wire for the state’s 88 delegates. It looks like Obama will squeak out a very slim majority and take 44 delegates, leaving loser Hillary with just 44 delegates. Though it is possible Hillary will pull off the upset, earning the lion’s share of 44 delegates to Obama’s meager 44.

Gunner Lynx: Until that exciting race is resolved, we’ll have to keep our “Breaking News” graphic on the screen.

Vulpine Puncher: It’s a beautiful graphic, Gunner.

Gunner Lynx: Thank you, Vulpine. And in the meantime, we have more breaking news: This network is now projecting that Al Gore won Florida in 2000. Vulpine, how does this affect the current election?

Vulpine Puncher: Well, if Gore won Florida, then he was President the last eight years, which means the Democrats are now to blame for the Iraq War and the failing economy.

Gunner Lynx: Something to keep an eye on. We’ll return in a minute, but first we go to commercial.

Vulpine Puncher: I speculate it will be a car commercial.

They will go on like this until election season is over or Bobcat Smasher’s funeral, whichever comes last. It’s not fair and balanced. It’s just good TV.

Scott is a second-year law student. He would turn to cannibalism before eating nougat.