[Cough, cough]. Sorry. Please excuse us. Your W Team is suffering from a nasty imaginary reaction to the imaginary poison gas released by the Butcher of Baghdad (no, not Tommy Franks!) at the close of the war to liberate the people and resources of Iraq.
 
This is extremely inconvenient [cough, cough]. It comes at a time when we are confined in the imaginary biohazard suits we're wearing to protect us from the imaginary bio-terrorist attacks by Syria [cough, cough]. What's more, the suits make it hard to see the imaginary SCUDs raining down upon us from Iran and causing God only knows how many imaginary casualties.
 
Here in imaginary America.
 
Oh well, we'll either get better or die (we're prepared to lay money on that), so we might as well get on with the good news, which is...
 
GEORGE BUSH HAS ALREADY WON THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2004! HURRAH!
 
Yes! This past Friday our Bemused Baton Bearer has again volunteered to serve as the national icon, thus putting to rest all that awful suspense. And, since there is no credible opposition--and none likely to emerge--he becomes the de facto choice!
 
The certainty of his destined victory lies in the Democratic Party's accelerating desertion under fire.
 
For example, as is by now clear to bright second graders, there are no significant weapons of mass destruction to be found in Iraq (hint: they were spirited away by blue fairies! Yes!). Yet House Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi, who before the war all but accused the White House of fabricating the existence of such weapons, has now retrieved her own gauntlet.
 
In a recent interview, held beneath a representation of the Democratic Crest (crossed white feathers on a field of yellow), the California legislator described herself as "sort of an agnostic" on the question of WMDs, adding "I salute the president for the goal of removing weapons of mass destruction."
 
There was no explanation of her failure to credit the President's equally adroit circumvention of rogue elephant stampedes through the streets of Poughkeepsie.
 
And Tom, "Give 'im hell, Tom" Daschle, who earlier had hinted that the President's WMD assertions strayed a bit to the mythological, now sings his praises. In a recent interview the Senate Minority Leader said, "Regime change was a legitimate goal, it was accomplished and I think that's laudable in and of its own right,''

Seems kind of a shame to put the nation to the unnecessary expense of voting, doesn't it?
 
Senator Daschle is of course angling to be the President's new Campaign Manager, but the pandemic dereliction has also infected the rest of the Democratic party, and not least the presidential aspirants, many of whom are reluctant to take on the President's handling of the war--or much else.
 
As it now stands, the field of Democratic hopefuls comprises three kinds of candidate:
     1. Those with a ghost of a chance,
     2. Those without a ghost of a chance,
     3. Al Sharpton.
 
Some Democrats have found a ray of hope in the hyper-reported gumption of the so-called Runaway Texas Democrats, who absented themselves from the state Capitol in protest of a highly controversial redistricting bill backed by U.S. Representative, Tom "Bugsy" DeLay. The Fugitive 55 achieved victory merely by depriving the legislature of a quorum. But of course this act has no national implications, since most U.S. Congressional Democrats are already missing.
 
Thus it would appear the only thing standing between the President and a second term is Ralph Nader, a man who hasn't been seen since Democrats declared a bounty on him after the 2000 election--a fatwa not likely to be rescinded as long as any who voted in that election are still alive.
 
And, certainly, Mr. Bush's chances are not in the least threatened by the Press in its continued refusal to examine his Ahab-like pursuit of the now seemingly evanescent Mr. Hussein.
 
The fourth estate's silence on this matter is not entirely due to lickspittle servility; no, not entirely. Much of the nation's press is lately obsessed with the case of one Jayson Blair, late of the New York Times, and now the center of a growing controversy which has expanded beyond the young reporter's apparent betrayal of every conceivable journalistic ethic into a debate on...(brace for it) affirmative action! Yes!
 
You see, Mr. Blair is an African American, and this fact gives rise to some concern that he may have received special treatment for that reason. As everyone knows, being black in America is an enormous socio-economic advantage, and one often shamelessly exploited by those fortunate enough to have been born into such estate.
 
Media analysts have created prodigies of implicit excoriation of the errant reporter's actions. Here, they hint, is a young man who, were it not for the benevolence and civic-mindedness of his employers, would even now be running the streets pushing dope and holding up 7-11s (an ironic role reversal, when you think about it). Mr. Blair's treachery, they imply, shames his entire race.
 
It is just this sort of ingratitude that simply ruined the plantation system in Nineteenth Century America.
 
What is particularly galling is that this sort of behavior seems the exclusive province of minorities. We consulted a panel of experts that included formerly eminent biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin; former Boston Globe columnist, Mike Barnicle; and former New Republic writer, Stephen Glass; not one of whom could think of a single instance in which a white journalist had committed similar authorial improprieties.
 
The Blair case having sucked the oxygen from America's journalistic lungs (it's Newsweek's current cover story), it's no wonder the press has not found the time to comment on the few trifling areas in which the President might be vulnerable. These would include the steadily worsening economy, declining employment, failing schools, the devolving war on terrorism, the growing Middle East debacle, international treaties, relations with UN members, spurious tax cuts, declining health and welfare, ethics in government, the suppression of civil liberties, and one or two others.
 
Thus there is nothing to prevent Mr. Bush's re-ascension to the Throne of Columbia. And what could be better news? We look upon his works and we tremble! Consider all that he has done for America in only two years; and then think of what he could do with the nation in four more!
 
You wouldn't even recognize it.