Several prominent Republicans are incensed at Senator Barack Obama for his use of race as an issue during the 2008 campaign.

"Don't tell me he isn't making race an issue," said President George W. Bush. "Every time he does a television commercial or makes a speech, there it is -- a black man running for President."

"If Obama isn't making race an issue, then why is he black?" asked Rush Limbaugh, noted radio commentator and white person.

"The emergence of a black man as a Presidential contender changes the entire campaign," complained Republican strategist Kate Obenshain. "If we trot out images of menacing black criminals to scare the hell out of suburban housewives, the Democrats will accuse us of racist pandering. It's nothing of the sort. It's just a fact that suburban housewives are afraid of imaginary black criminals. We don't own the media, you know. We just use it to cater to unfounded fears. Besides, Republicans are very adept at dealing with black criminal stereotypes. It's one of our strong suits, and now it's being taken away."

Chris LaCivita, who helped organize the Swift Boat media blitz, was livid. "Here's a guy who's never been in the military, never been involved in a financial scandal, and never had an extra-marital affair. Any time we smear him as cowardly or lacivious, someone starts whining about racial stereotypes. At least we nailed John Edwards. That's something."

Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, who isn't a Republican, but wants to be, stated: "Every time I try to paint him as a Muslim, someone brings up the race issue. It's not a race issue, it's a religious issue. Do you really want a Muslim in the White House? Or even someone who has a Muslim middle name? Would you want Louis Farrakhan in the White House? Well, Obama knows him. What if he invited Louis Farrakhan to dinner at the White House? What about that?"

Vice President Dick Cheney was unavailable for comment.

WASHINGTON - Boldly living up to his promise never to set a schedule for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, President George Bush announced that he and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki have agreed instead on a time horizon for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq.

"Horizons are not schedules or timetables," President Bush explained.."Horizons are something that the sun sets behind. Like the sun, American troops will gently, gradually sink into the horizon, or at least move to Afghanistan, which is over the horizon from Iraq, I think."

General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, was moved to tears by the agreement. "It's so poetic I can't help but get a little misty when I think of it," he said. "I only wish General Douglas MacArthur could be here to see it. Old soldiers never die, they just gently vanish over the horizon like sand in the hourglass that is the days of our lives."

"I knew the surge would work, that's why I suggested it," mused Senator John McCain. "I really didn't think it would be reminiscent of the gentle surge of the Mediterranean lapping like a contented lover against a warm inviting beach. This is a proud moment for America."

Reverend Jesse Jackson, who lately has taken to crude speech, took umbrage with McCain's remarks. "Somebody tell that peckerwood that I got his surge and he can lap it till his tongue gets tired. That's right. Live with it."

Barack Obama quickly denounced Jackson's comments, calling them offensive. "John McCain is a legitimate American hero and I respect his service. I would no more call him a peckerwood than I would call him an ofay or a chuck," he said. "This campaign is going to be about issues, not epithets. Lay off the paddy. I mean it."

Vice President Dick Cheney was unavailable for comment.

In a not unexpected turn of events, Don Imus, the controversial shock jock, is no longer allowed to utter the word black.

"He needs to say nothing at all about blacks," said Dick Gregory. "I hereby forbid him from doing so."

"If I hear of him referring to blacks, I'll have him fired," agreed Al Sharpton. "If anyone wants to talk about blacks, they need to clear it through me."

"I'm never ever going to say anything about blacks as long as I live," said Hillary Clinton. "It's best to pretend that blacks don't exist. That way there won't be any trouble."

"I am deeply offended that Don Imus asked if I was black," sobbed Adam "Pacman" Jones, who has been arrested numerous times for being black. "The nerve of that guy. I am shattered."

Presidential hopeful Barack Obama commented on the incident. "Bill Clinton was not the first black President. Hopefully, I will be the first black President. We need a President who can dance. Anyone who jokes about it will be dealt with harshly."

"I've been ignoring blacks for years," said President George W. Bush. "I will continue to ignore blacks. It's best."

Vice President Dick Cheney was unavailable for comment.

President George W. Bush prepared for delicate negotiations with China concerning investment and energy policy in a meeting on Tuesday with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said the meeting was cordial, but Ms. Rice left the meeting early "most likely because of a female problem."

"You just never know with a woman," added Perino.

The discovery of a disturbing drawing that might be the work of Michelle Obama while she was in the second grade has Republicans expressing doubts about Mrs. Obama's qualifications to be first lady.

The drawing shows military tanks, mortars, and Jeeps interspersed with children in a haphazard fashion.

McCain adviser Randy Scheunemann, in a hastily called news conference, stated. "While this drawing may or may not be the work of Michelle Obama as a child, it certainly shows the working of a disturbed mind. Do we really want to take a chance on a person like this?"

"At the very least, this drawing shows absolutely no concern for the safety of children," said Bill O'Reilly, who has not had sexual harassment charges filed against him in several months. "Maybe she cares about her children, but it's pretty plain that she doesn't care a hoot or a holler about anyone else's."

Noted psychologist John Duckstazo thought the drawing was possibly related to a childhood trauma. "She was probably frightened by a war film, or possibly a soldier," he said. "All of the children in the picture are white. Perhaps it shows an unconscious desire for white people to be run over by tanks. I have never met Mrs. Obama, but if she says she's not proud to be an American, it makes sense that she would want white people to be crushed by tanks."

"My wife, who is normal, taught school for a while," said President George W. Bush. "If a kid ever turned anything like that into her, she would've had the child removed, evaluated, and placed in foster care. You can never be too careful."

Republicans everywhere are being asked by the RNC to circulate the drawing via email to alert the public about the possible menace.

Vice President Dick Cheney was unavailable for comment.

I love this video. Only problem is that they should include Obama in the mix. You take Sally, I'll take Sue. Ain't no difference between the two.

McCainanites, Bushskovites, and other assorted neocons are still happily hacking on Ron Paul.

Michael Goldfarb, Deputy Communications Director for the anointed Republican standard bearer John McCain writes:

"There should be plenty of room for the Paulnuts in Obama's big tent. If Rev. Wright isn't exactly a 9/11 Truther, at least he's breathed new life into the Pearl Harbor Truther movement. Imagine a newsletter coauthored by the Reverend and Lew Rockwell--now that's racial harmony."

Dave Nalle, part of a self-professed "sinister cabal of superior writers ," states:

"...McCain has never presented himself as 'pro-war' that's just their (Paultards, Paulnuts, insert your own pejorative) interpretation. The actual war in Iraq is over and McCain is not currently advocating any other new wars. That McCain supports keeping troops in Iraq until the country is past its current troubles is more of an anti-war position, since our presence there reduces the level of violence and the risk of Iranian invasion and a full-scale war."

Apparently the tired old neocons calling themselves the "New Right," through some arcane process of Orwellian double-think, actually believe that Paul supporters are as stupid as they take pains to portray them.

I have news. It's not that Paul supporters are idiots, the plain fact is that drivel like these two have written would reduce any normal thinking person to incoherent rage.

It is no wonder that such inane nattering produces comments like, "You suck."

Goldfarb trots out Reverend Wright like a circus trick dog and, for a change, decides to use his reprehensible guilt by association tactics on the Ron Paul camp. Why not? If it worked on Obama, it will work on Paul. No sense letting the truth stand in the way of a good smear.

Nalle, from his superior perch, actually has the gall to tell us the war in Iraq is over. Then, apparently just for fun, he goes on to explain how continuing the non-war is actually a peace position.

That sucks, alright.

I was talking to my son the other night. He told me that it was impossible to write political satire because the real political situation is more absurd than we can imagine.

We have a sitting President who manufactured reasons to go to war with a nation that presented no immediate threat to the US. Hundreds of thousands of people are dead.

The only constitutional conservative in the Presidential primaries was branded a nutjob and a kook because he didn't believe that debacle to be sound foreign policy.

When the GOP crashes and burns this November, bring a bag of marshmallows to roast.

It's going to be a hell of a show.

Will George W. Bush be upset by former White House press secretary Scott McClellan's book?

No.

It's not like he can actually read it, is it?

A federal grand jury heard testimony from three Iraqis yesterday concerning the killing of 17 civilians in Baghdad by Blackwater Worldwide last September. Federal prosecuters are toiling to find out if any of the government contractors can be charged with a crime in the US since an occupation decree prevents them from being charged under Iraqi law.

"It's a knotty question," said Kenneth Kohl of the federal prosecution team. "A federal grand jury can pretty much do anything it wants any time it wants, but the question of whether it's illegal to kill Iraqis in Iraq just stumps the hell out of us."

"It appears to be a question of quantity, not quality," chimed in Stephen Ponticiello, another member of the prosecution team. "If you kill 17 civilians because you are a trigger happy cowboy, that may be a criminal act. If you bomb a major city for invented reasons killing thousands, it's pretty clear that you are a statesman. If the contractors had killed a few thousand Iraqis, I don't think there would be a problem."

President George W. Bush responded indirectly to the incident today in a commencement speech before the United States Air Force Academy. "We must make war more precise," he said. "We need to find them terrorists and kill' em and leave them civilians alone. It's unfortunate, that's what it is."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reacted in a practical manner. "You boys be nice," she told the contractors. "We're going to renew your contracts because you haven't been charged with anything, and I know you need the money. Just to make sure you're being nice, I am going to make you put cameras on all your vehicles. That way if you're naughty, we'll know."

Vice President Dick Cheney was unavailable for comment.

Members of the scientific community, gays, straights, barflies, politicians, and a few stray passers-by were astounded today by the findings of two independent studies showing conclusively that homosexuality is caused by soy products and beer.

Jim Rutz (pun unintended), writing in WorldNetDaily, states:

Unfortunately, when you eat or drink a lot of soy stuff, you're also getting substantial quantities of estrogens.

Soy is feminizing (sic), and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality. That's why most of the medical (not socio-spiritual) blame for today's rise in homosexuality must fall upon the rise in soy formula and other soy products. (Most babies are bottle-fed during some part of their infancy, and one-fourth of them are getting soy milk!) Homosexuals often argue that their homosexuality is inborn because "I can't remember a time when I wasn't homosexual." No, homosexuality is always deviant. But now many of them can truthfully say that they can't remember a time when excess estrogen wasn't influencing them.

Fibrocystic.com came in with even sadder news:

Zava, PhD showed that these herbs stimulated estrogen receptor positive breast cancer cells to grow. Red Clover and Yucca were found to be equal in potency to estradiol at the same concentrations. Women who harvest hops for beer begin menstruating 2 days later anecdotally. Zava has confirmed that beer has a significant amount of phytoestrogens that have moderate estrogen activity from hops used in the flavoring of beer.

Reactions to the news varied among pundits and politicians.

"Well, at least they can stop looking for the gay gene," said Ann Coulter. "I always figured it was lattes, myself."

"Beer makes you queer?" asked Geraldo Rivera. "You mean Joe Six-Pack is light in the loafers? That explains Hannity. Colmes is a wine sipper. Go figure."

"What the hell is anecdotal menstruation?" inquired Huma Abedin, aide to Hillary Clinton. "I've never heard of anyone menstruating anecdotally. Sounds interesting, though."

Barack Obama took a more serious view. "We need tolerance for the lactose intolerant," he said. "We need further research to find a solution and a substitute."

"If people want to drink soy milk and chase it with a beer or two, that's their business," said Ron Paul. "I can't see funding any studies whatsoever. What's so funny about that?"

"That explains the Craig incident," said President Bush. "If his mother had breast fed him, everything would've been hunky dory. If he had a beer or two in the airport lounge, there's no way he could've helped himself."

Vice President Dick Cheney was unavailable for comment.

In a not unexpected development, Gunner Sykes' newest independent poll shows that 83% of American voters believe that former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer resigned because he was under investigation for transporting prostitutes across state lines.

23% of voters under the age of 30 spelled prostitutes "h-o-e-s."

Not surprisingly, 63% of all eligible voters support the US government spending part, or all, of its productive man hours spying on people who are not themselves.

"If they're not doing nothing wrong, they don't have nothing to worry about," said Denise Moorehead, who is in her sixth year of study at Wabash Community College of Storm Door Hanging and Practical Arts.

"If the FBI wants to pry into peoples' bank accounts, tap their phones, and destroy their families in order to stop people from smoking pot in their homes, or hiring prostitutes I can't afford, that's just fine with me," opined Terry Wayne Warhacker, an unemployed mortgage broker. "This time it was just a governor messing around on the side, but next time it just might be a dope dealer, or even a terrorist."

In a related matter, President George Bush proposed expanding the war on terror and ending rising unemployment rates by employing 50% of US citizens to spy on the other 50%.

"My proposal will stop terrorism in its tracks while guaranteeing full employment," explained the President. "Half of the people could spy on one half for an eight hour shift. Then the other half could spy on the other half for the next eight hour shift. Most people sleep during the midnight shift, so I don't think that will be a problem."

Presidential hopeful John McCain applauded the Bush proposal. "We must be ever watchful for wrong-doers and people who employ the services of high-class hos. When I'm President, I will see about applying this principle on an international basis. I don't see why Syria can't spy on Iran, and then Iran take its turn spying on Syria. It would keep everyone straight and possibly end the turmoil in the Middle East."

Vice-President Dick Cheney was unavailable for comment.