BlameBush!

RNK Coverage: Shattering the "Liberal Media" Myth

As I flipped through the channels last night trying to find the Reichspublikan National Kristalnacht so that I might blog about it this morning, I was faced with the dismal reality that no one was covering the event. Here I was, preparing to fire off angry emails to all the major networks demanding they stop providing free political advertising for the GOP, and I couldn't find a single channel airing the convention.

Then I came to PBS.

Typically known for their fair and balanced presentation of the news, PBS was inexcusably showing people talking about the convention. It was almost too obscene to believe - three well known journalists discussing how quaint, yet sad and pathetic the Republicans are - but in the background one could clearly hear the sounds of the convention - LIVE AND IN PROGRESS!!!. I sank into my bean bag chair, speechless. I was trapped in some sort of Orwellian nightmare, with no escape save changing the channel. Yet like passers-by unable to pull their eyes away from a grisly traffic accident, I sat there, helpless, as Big Brother shoved his vile propaganda down my throat.

I managed a wince as they wheeled out some dingbat Republican representative from the 13th district of Barstow, California, expecting them to let her spew her lies about Bush. They redeemed themselves somewhat when they proceeded to berate and ridicule her, asking her questions like "Being a woman, do you find it hard to be a member in a party that has historically been so anti-women's rights?" and "Do you think the public will buy the party's attempt to appear mainstream?" Fair and balanced, sure. But in the background, YOU COULD STILL HEAR THE CONVENTION!!

It went on like that for almost two hours; A republican moron commentator would come out, Lehrer would smite him with his wisdom, while in the background it was 1933 Nuremberg. At one point, they even cut to live video of Dick Cheney entering Madison Square Garden, and it was all I could do to keep from tossing my lava lamp through the TV screen.

I guess this pretty much shatters the myth of a "liberal media", doesn't it? And the real kick in the crotch is that they're using taxpayer dollars to spew this crap.

RNK Coverage: Bush Says We Can't Win War

It's typical for right-wing extremist candidates to swing to the left for their convention. In 2000, the Shrub promised he'd be a "Compassionate Conservative", yet he's been strongly opposed to gay marriage, abortion rights, and stem cell research for four long years. Now, on the eve of the Reichspublikan National Kristalnacht in which he's to be named Chancellor of the Reich, Bush has admitted we can't win the war on terror.

"I don't think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that the — those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world."

Nice try, Mr. Bush, but you aren't fooling anyone. No one believes you've suddenly seen the light and have joined the rest of the progressive world in our drive towards Winning the Peace through a mutually acceptable stalemate.

No, Mr. Bush, we know perfectly well that you intend to "win the war," and that's why we'll be throwing you out of office this November.

Stick to your mindless warmongerering and leave the thoughtful discussion to Senator Patty Murray.

Hell Bent for Kerry

I deeply regret that I won't be amongst my progressive brothers and sisters as they suck teargas at the Reichspublikan National Kristalnacht in New Nuremberg City this week. It's truly breathtaking to see flora and fauna from all walks of life standing together against Der Fuhrer Bush - not only for his oil-stealing blitzkrieg across the Middle East, but for his ruthless crushing of our civil liberties under his blood-stained jackboots.

However, we Pacific Northwest progressives had a little westcoast clambake of our own last weekend. Vietnam war hero John Fitzgerald Kennedy was in the Puget Sound area to rally the troops, and threw a huge campaign jamboree at the Tacoma Dome on Saturday.
Although I haven't seen live Kerry since I was thrown out of his last rally, I've read that his stage show is the best since Pink Floyd's The Wall. Indeed, the audience went nuts as Kerry "reported for duty" in his floating neon swiftboat, descending from above into giant explosions of fire and towering fountains of sparks. Cheers filled the stadium as he sprang out of the boat, gave his trademark salute, and broke into a scorching rendition of All Gun's Blazing, followed by an equally metallicious Some Heads Are Gonna Roll that brought the house down.

But there's a time for rockin', and there's a time for talkin'. John Kerry knows how to bang heads with the best of them, but he was there to deliver a message. For the next three hours, he regaled us with his plan to pull the economy out of the greatest despression since the Great Depression, just as he had once valiantly pulled a wounded Marine out of the waters of Quang Phoc.

Recent census bureau data shows that the richest 20 percent make the most income, whereas the poorest Americans have almost no income at all. Every day, thousands of working families are forced to choose between feeding their children dog food or getting that new DVD player, all thanks to Bush's tax cuts. It was directly to these people that Kerry spoke: the hardworking, unemployed, destitute Americans who somehow managed to scrounge enough pennies out of the gutter to pay for the $20 Tacoma Dome parking.

He spoke to Mary from Spokane, an unemployed mother of five who lost her sales position at Pets.com when Bush destroyed Clinton's booming economy. Since September of 2001, she's had to rely on unemployment benefits and her husband's neurosurgery income to make ends meet until she is called back to work. In these desperate times, Mary has even entertained thoughts of seeking employment elsewhere, possibly with petsmart.com - for less money.

Kerry also spoke to Brad, a manager at an Olympia area K-Mart until store closures resulted in massive layoffs. After three years looking for work, Brad was finally forced to accept a position at his former competitor, Wal-Mart, for fifty cents an hour less than what he made before. To make matters worse, Wal-Mart requires that new employees be on the payroll for at least six months before they qualify for medical benefits, forcing Brad to temporarily discontinue his sex change hormone treatments. Not quite male, not quite female, yet both at the same time, Brad draws stares from his coworkers and fears for his own safety.

Kerry reached out to Jerry from Everett, a Boeing engineer who made a six figure salary until his job was outsourced to Pakistan. Now he works at Microsoft, where he makes significantly more money, but in a non-unionized position. As a result, Jerry has to work a brutal 40-hour week, and can barely find the time to properly dispose of the prostitutes he strangles to death along the Sea-Tac strip. He keeps up a strong front for his family's sake, but privately Jerry worries about a future that doesn't look so bright anymore.

What it all boils down to is that while Bush claims there are jobs, they aren't the same jobs. Many people who were laid off when their factory closed down, or their jobs were outsourced, or they were caught blogging on company time - had to look for different jobs at entirely different companies. Often, they'd have to start a new job for less money than they were making before, without any benefits, and without access to the internet. If my grandparents were alive today, they'd recognize these as frightening symptoms of another republican-caused Great Depression, and they'd know in their hearts that it would take another courageous democrat to save us.

Gramma, Grampa, wherever you are, be at peace. For when John Kerry is inaugurated in January of 2005, high-paying jobs will magically spring forth from his ass and rain down upon us like manna from the heavens.

The John Kerry 12-Step Program to Win the Peace

Since the dawn of history, the ultimate goal of war has always been to kill to enemy and crush his spirit until he submits to your will. As a consequence, billions of lives have been lost, and valuable resources have been wasted furthering the cause of Western imperialism. It wasn't until Vietnam that the world realized the best way to avoid pointless death and destruction is to discard the primitive concept of defeating the enemy, and instead focus on "winning the peace" through the determined pursuit of a complete stalemate.

If it is our imperialistic arrogance and jingoistic pride that causes wars, then it's also America's historical insistence on military superiority that prevents it from relying on diplomatic means to resolve conflicts. Where collaboration and appeasement would insure an everlasting peace, the U.S. military-industrial complex rushes to war, resorting to knee-jerk retaliatory and pre-emptive attacks on weaker nations that unfairly result in an unequal distribution of casualities. How can we Win the Peace when the enemy's dead and wounded exponentially outnumbers that of our own?

John Kerry has the answer. Despite the Bush junta's incessant lying to the contrary, Kerry's strategy for Winning the Peace is as clear as Roma Downey's urine. It can be found on his campaign website, if you look hard enough. It can be heard in his speeches, if one merely reads between the lines. In twelve simple steps, John Kerry will systematically weaken our arrogant resolve to "win the war", while simultaneously encouraging the enemy to fight on. Ultimately, this will balance the scales and create a level playing field so that both sides can mutually work towards a peaceful deadlock.

Step 1: Attack the Secretary of Defense
John Kerry knows that the First Step towards Winning the Peace is siding with the enemy against the man who is actively plotting their destruction. As the architect of the infamous "Shock and Awe" campaign, as well as the Abu Ghraib attrocities, Donald Rumsfeld's unmitigated determination to "win the war" only serves to increase senseless bloodshed and make Iraqi babies cry. Instead of feeling the enemy's pain, he is the cause of it with his gruff persona and must-win approach to warfare. If we're ever to bring this silly war to a peaceful stalemate, we'll need less Bill Holdens and more Bill Clintons running the show.

Step 2: Reach Out to Our Allies
Sun Tzu said that there are two paths one may take in war: One is to victory, the other one runs through France. When the Romans sacked Carthage in 149 B.C. and put every man, woman, and child to the sword, they must've been kicking themselves for not first appealing to France. Instead, they had to live with the shame of victory, and 500 years later the Roman Empire was no more. As our first French President, John Kerry will bring our trusted French allies to the table and pay them whatever it takes to obtain their help and guidance.

Step 3: Less Fighting, More Paperwork
John Kerry is right. Bush has mismanaged this war by allowing the warriors to do all the managing. Sure, he sets goals and objectives, but when it comes down to moving little toy tanks across the big map in the war room, he's mysteriously AWOL. Allowing career soldiers to call the shots might win the war, but only a lifelong bureaucrat can win the peace. As President, John Kerry will appoint a Blue Ribbon Commission to investigate the committee looking into forming a bipartisan board of commissioners charged with presenting a 1500 page plan of action for possibly forming another commission concerning whether troops should shout "Ollie Ollie Oxen Free" before engaging the enemy. With a less streamlined, more bureaucratic chain-of-command, Kerry will insure that no trigger-happy jarhead will ever return fire on the enemy without first completing a form B79873-A. In triplicate.

Step 4: Be Honest
As Nobel Laureate Jimmy Carter taught us, peace begins with the simple admission that you're powerless over the enemy. By constantly declaring the war a "failure", John Kerry's strategy to Win the Peace will be built upon a foundation of self-doubt and shame.

Step 5: Have Faith
A history of jingoist hegemony run riot can be brought to a screeching halt by making a simple decision to turn everything over to a higher power - The United Nations. To Win the Peace, John Kerry will pull our troops out from under the imperialistic Stars & Stripes and put them where they belong, behind the Ol' Baby Blue.

Step 6: Admit Your Mistakes
When a series of gross miscalculations cost thousands of American lives in the Battle of the Bulge, President Roosevelt immediately called a press conference to confess his mistakes and beg his political enemies for forgiveness. If only George Bush had the courage and insight to admit he's wrong. John Kerry does, and he'll never hesitate to apologize to the whole world for Bush's screw-ups.

Step 7: Humility
Pride goeth before the fall. Next to denouncing your own brothers as war criminals and murderers, nothing crushes pride and smothers that pesky troop morale like constantly reminding them of what a lousy job they're doing. As President, John Kerry will continue to ignore our successes while highlighting our failures. With both the mainstream media and the democrat party focusing on images of crying mothers, flag-draped coffins, and butt-naked Iraqis, America will never forget what a bloodthirsty imperialist empire it is.

Step 8: More Troops
By criticizing the lack of troops with boots on the ground, President Kerry will reassure the enemy that we're greatly outnumbered, while emphasizing the necessity to surrender the whole freak show to the U.N.

Step 9: Less Troops
By publicly announcing that he'll be withdrawing troops in the midst of battle, Kerry gives the enemy hope to fight on, while crushing our own force's misguided sense of purpose. If this seems to contradict #8, do not worry. He's John Kerry, and he has three Purple Hearts.

Step 10: Accept Our Faults
One of the most important steps towards recovery is accepting your defects rather than hiding them. Having voted against funding our troops, John Kerry knows exactly what our weaknesses are - and he'll make sure the enemy does as well. Our humvees don't have armor. Our troops don't have ammo. Our forces are over-extended. By constantly announcing real and fictional military weaknesses, John Kerry will boldly send the message to our soldiers and those of the enemy that we just don't have what it takes to see this thing through to victory.

Step 11: Don't Present a Unified Front
As John Kerry wrote in his brilliant book, "We are asking America to turn from false glory, hollow victory, fabricated foreign threats, fear which threatens us as a nation, shallow pride which feeds off fear, and mostly from the promises which have proven so deceiving these past ten years."
If there's anything we learned from Vietnam, it is the important contribution a large anti-war movement has toward Winning the Peace. Working in concert with anti-war groups, morbidly obese documentary filmmakers, and the mainstream media, John Kerry will stoke the fires of dissent here at home and insure that we don't have a repeat of the widespread jingoism America experienced after 9/11. After 8 years of government-fed self-loathing, America won't have the will to fight a traffic ticket, let alone a War on Terror.

Step 12: Closure
The term "war" implies that one side must win for it to be over. However, referring to it as a "police action" or a "conflict" allows one to give up fighting without the stigma of shame that comes from conceding to defeat. John Kerry will never surrender the "war" in Iraq - but by working towards a peaceful deadlock, he will finally bring an end to the "conflict". And isn't that really what we all want, deep down inside?

Kerry Daughter Joins Swift Boat Vets for Bush?

A reluctant thanks to spd rdr and right-wing extremist Cassandra over at Jet Noise for tipping me off to this MTV interview of the beautiful and intelligent Harvard scholar, Vanessa Kerry.

When I first read it, however, I was outraged. FURIOUS!

Kerry: And you know, he did tell me that he did have three Purple Hearts, 'cause I found them and was like, "What are these?" And he was like, "Purple Hearts." And I was like "How did you get them?" And he was like "I was shot." And you're sitting there, like "What, he was shot?" He was shot three times, and when you think about that it's pretty bad, but obviously it's like bad, and stuff.

"LYING WHORE!" I screamed at my computer, pounding the keyboard with my fists. "LYING RACIST BUSH-SURROGATE! John Kerry was not 'shot'! He was gravely wounded three times by enemy shrapnel! SHRAPNEL, YOU LYING FASCIST WHORE!!!"

But after I calmed down and wiped the spittle from my monitor, I realized that poor Vanessa probably hadn't read the official campaign version of Kerry's war wounds, and was merely relying on her father's account of the events.

I'll sure sleep easier tonight knowing Kerry's lovely daughter hasn't betrayed her own.

Tremblez, Tyrans! Et vous, Perfides!

Today, France celebrates the 60th anniversary of the Allied visit to Paris. The French tradition of warmly welcoming large foreign armies into its capitol dates back two thousand years, when Gallic tribes occupied most of the area. With tear-filled eyes, the Gauls reluctantly bid farewell to Paris in 53 B.C., when the Romans marched into the great city and proudly declared it "Gallia Parisi", or "Village of Back-Stabbing Weasels".

Much excitement and celebration swept through Paris as Atilla the Hun approached the city circa 451 B.C., lured by it's plethora of fine shops and sidewalk cafés. But after his brief downwind approach, he mysteriously turned his army around and ran like mad to the south, never to return.

Germanic Franks enjoyed Paris' many comforts from about the 7th to 9th century A.D. when they handed the jolly ol' Vikings the keys to the city and encouraged them to burn it to the ground. Sadly, the Vikings were immune to Paris' romantic allure, and quickly left without even bothering to perform the customary raping of France's most beautiful women. Both girls were sent home disappointed, having stood in line for days.

Civil war, Black Death, and Napoleon kept all but the most fanatically Paris-loving armies out of the city for the next thousand years or so. Even the construction of the wide, tree-lined Champs-Élysées wasn't enough to attract any conquerers. But in 1870, the Prussians responded to an aggressive "Invade Paris this Summer" ad campaign launched by the French Department of Tourism, and flooded through the city's gates to enjoy its many hedonistic pleasures.

They say that once you've been to Paris, you'll never go back to the farm. And so it was that in 1940, the German army marched into Paris once again. Welcoming their old friends with much fanfare, the ever-friendly French people were more than happy to volunteer their Jews to help out Hitler with his soap and lampshade shortage. France and Germany enjoyed a close friendship until four years later, when American troops rudely ran the Germans out of Paris and assailed its citizens with their cowboy arrogance and obnoxious theme parks. Thankfully, the French have never been ones to hold a grudge, and today they remain one of our closest, most loyal allies.

Congratulations, Paris, and although actual Americans weren't "invited" to join the celebration, we're with you in spirit. Or at least, in the form of French actors dressed up like American soldiers.

*Note: There has been much debate as to whether the 2001 arrival of a small troop of Boy Scouts along the Champs-Élysées qualifies as an "occupation" of Paris. Although the appearance of the scouts did indeed result in the accidental and quite embarassing surrender of Paris by the French government, it was later retracted when the kids relinquished control of the city in exchange for free passes to Euro Disney. For that reason, the author did not include the incident in this brief history of Paris.

Gimpy Dole Joins Swifty Sleazoids

I wasn't going to post anymore on all this Swift Boat propaganda. It makes no sense to re-open the old wounds of the Vietnam War, and I wish we could put that ugly part of American history behind us so we can all worship John Kerry's heroism in a sort of silent awe and reverence. But the Right-Wing Attack Machine just won't stop digging up the dead. From day one, Republicans have done all they can to prevent Kerry from becoming president, even going so far as to demand he take a position on something...anything. The man fought in Vietnam, for crying out loud. Who are they to make demands of him?

Now the so-called Swift Boat Veterans for Truth - or, as Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Maureen Dowd calls them, "The Sleazy Swifty Sleazoids for Bushie-Wushie Ding-Dong", have ratcheted up their vile rhetoric against the celebrated war hero. Even after Kerry blessed them with his unconditional love and forgiveness, these baby-killing rapists and murderers continue to air their deceitful TV ads assailing his character. Meanwhile, wealthy Texas billionaires continue to pour money into their slimey smear campaign - money made by sending young, fresh-faced children off to die in Iraq, so Cowboy Bushie-Wushie can git the varmints that tried ta kill his Pa. Hate, it seems, is not without a sense of irony.

So where is all the anger coming from? These butchers are obviously sore at him for something, but it defies explanation and remains a complete mystery to the whole wide world. Even after Kerry picked up the phone to personally ask these cattle-razers "What bug crawled up your baby-killing butts?", the testicle-electrocuting Jingus Khans refused to elaborate.

Perhaps the answer lies with Sen. Bob Dole - or, "Gimpy Viagra-Boy Bobby-Boo" as Maureen Dowd calls him - who suggested that Kerry "apologize" to Vietnam veterans for his 1971 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations committee - a selfless act which probably put an end to the war and brought the troops home. APOLOGIZE? If anything, the veterans should be THANKING Kerry for putting an end to their Carnival of Carnage so they could at least attempt to look at themselves in the mirror again one day. And methinks ol' Viagra Boy is just a wee bit grumpy 'cuz he can't do the Hitler salute anymore, thanks to a self-inflicted "war wound."

While some may theorize that it's for his brave Winter Soldier testimony that Kerry draws the ire of his former comrades, it's more likely that they're all simply jealous of his many sparkly decorations. Kerry came home with five medals for valor and bravery, but all these Swifty Sleazoids brought back were necklaces of Viet Cong ears and a legacy of shame.

Still, there is salvation for these dog-shooting decapitators. Only by ending their lying TV ads, pulling their filthy book from the shelves, and joining their brothers aboard the John Kerry Campaign Swiftboat can they finally wash the blood from their hands and become true American heroes.

Or, as Maureen Dowd calls them, "Hero Weero Super Duper Goody Good Guys".

Dude! It Like, Cures Glaucoma and Shit.

To be perfectly honest, I would have preferred to give this year's Seattle Hempfest a pass. It was something to look forward to back in the old days, but it has become so commercialized that I don't enjoy it anymore. Even the official festival mascot, "Bongwater Jim, the Man of 10,000 Zits" couldn't get me into the spirit.

However, as Second Deputy Assistant to the Vice President of Sales at Seattle Hemp Products, I was called on to represent. Even more important was the theme for this year's event: putting John Kerry in the White House so that the dream of readily available medicinal marijuana can finally be realized. With over 17 million people afflicted with glaucoma each year, it's the duty of every Bush-hating progressive to fight for the legalization of the only known cure. So, I spent my entire Saturday enveloped in a thick marijuana haze, hawking handmade hemp underwear with drawings of pot leaves over the crotch. All for a good cause.

The typical Seattle rain didn't keep the huge crowds away, either. Over 150,000 glaucoma sufferers took a day off from their lucrative careers to attend the event, decked out in a rainbow of beautiful tie-dye colors that only a half-blind person can truly appreciate. Many attendees remained conscious long enough to meet actor Woody Harrelson, who has been battling glaucoma for years. Several top bands highlighted the festival as well, such as these cool dudes with bongo drums, wooden flutes, and glaucoma. I can't remember their name, and they didn't really play any music, but you could feel the deep vibes of peace, love, and understanding coursing through the crowd like syphillis at a Bangkok cathouse.

The festival wasn't without it's detractors, though. Despite the passing of Seattle's Initiative-75 making it a criminal offense for the pigs to harsh someone's mellow, they were out in full force doing just that. Bushie's Pharmaceutical buddies can't stand competition, so the Shrub packed the place full of thinly disguised narcs looking for an unwary freelance pharmacist to bust. I watched, helpless, as the poor fellow in the booth adjacent to mine was dragged off by the Man, screaming "My eyes! My eyes!" as his paltry three kilos of glaucoma medicine were confiscated, along with the 200 or so Cosmic Spacebongs he was selling to help those afflicted with the dehabilitating disease.

Glaucoma is a degenerative disease caused by slowly increasing pressure of the fluids within the eye, resulting in a loss of peripheral vision, increased appetite, loud talking and bursts of laughter, lack of concentration or forgetfulness, poor dental hygeine, body odor similiar to burnt rope and cat piss, and the tendency to say "Dude" in every sentence. In its final stages, glaucoma sufferers can barely discern their own black-light Grateful Dead tapestries, even next to the glow of their lava lamps. Sadly, they spend their last days confined to their bean bag chairs, staring at the ceiling with glazed-over expressions, empty bags of Doritos scattered across the floor, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon CD on infinite repeat.

Until Bush and his evangelist masters realize that marijuana is NOT the Devil's Weed but miracle cure for all sorts of totally bogus diseases and stuff, more innocent people will be condemned to a world of darkness, suffering, and stanky, low-quality ratweed that some toothless weirdo grew in his basement.

Ask Pee-Resident Bushitler

"Thank you for bravely serving our country during Vietnam," one zombie said.

"How does it feel to be so loved all around the world?" asked another.

That's how it goes at these cheesy "Ask President Bush" lovefests he throws at all his campaign stops. You won't hear anyone asking Shrubya how it feels to be the greatest mass murderer since Ronald Reagan, or why he sat and stared at the wall for twenty minutes while New York burned.

The GOP is so desperate to conceal the fact that the whole world hates Bush, they've starting staging phony campaign rallies and packing them full of hired stooges. Only die-hard, kool-aid drinking cons are permitted inside these bogus events, while anyone with a dissenting opinion and a sack full of feces is turned away at the door. Dashikis are searched. "Bush = Hitler" signs are confiscated. Intrusive questions are asked, like "Why are you completely naked and drenched with ketchup?" and "Are you out of your f*cking mind?" It's all a concerted effort too keep real Americans out and weirdo right-wingers in.

A call to Washington State GOP Reichsführer Chris Vance was met with the following rude response:

"Perhaps when you learn to behave like rational, responsible adults, you'll get to sit at the big table with the grown-ups."

The nazi hung up before I could scream "FASCIST!" and blast my airhorn into the phone.

Just another example of Bush's relentless shredding of the Constitution. But we don't have to sit still for it. I encourage all progressive-thinking Americans to converge on New York City and show these jackbooted nabobs that we won't tolerate their constant subversion of our first amendment rights. If we roll enough cars, smash enough windows, and loot enough Nike Towns, they'll realize we mean business and ease up with the fascist police state tactics.

Then we'll see who gets to sit at their big grown up table.

Christmas in Cambodia

For weeks, Bush has been using surrogate groups like the Swift Boat Traitors for Smearing Heros to attack John Kerry's bravery and valor in the Vietnam War. Most recently, they've been screeching like baboons over Sen. John Kerry's assertion that he was deep inside Cambodia on Christmas Eve of 1968. In 1979, Kerry wrote an article for the Boston Herald, detailing his experience:

"I remember spending Christmas Eve five miles across the Cambodian border being shot at by our South Vietnamese allies who were drunk and celebrating Christmas. The absurdity of almost being killed by our own allies in a country in which President Nixon claimed there were no American troops was very real. I wanted a mission, and for my sins, they gave me one. They brought it up to me like room service...It was a real choice mission - and when it was over, I never wanted another."

While the shrub's goons question Kerry's honesty with outright lies like "Nixon wasn't even president in 1968", the Kerry campaign has produced new photographic evidence which should finally put this whole silly argument to rest.

"On December 24, 1968, Lieutenant John Kerry and his crew were on patrol in the watery borders between Vietnam and Cambodia," Kerry spokesman Michael Meehan explained. "In the early afternoon, Kerry's boat, PCF-44, was boarded by a special forces operative at Sa Dec and then headed north into Cambodian territory. He was going to the worst place in the world, and he didn't even know it yet."

While this would be enough to satisfy most rational people, prominent Republicans remain skeptical, calling the story a "load of hooey" and the photos "obvious fakes".

"They aren't even good fakes", RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie whined. "The majority of them are simply John Kerry and a Christmas tree crudely pasted into scenes from Apocalypse Now. The one of him on his bicycle is flat-out bizarre. What's with that chick from Sex and the City? Come on, I've seen better photoshop work from David Horowitz after an all night bender. Who is Senator Kerry trying to fool with this crap?"

Kerry responded in turn by blasting Bush for playing dirty politics.

"I love the smell of desperation in the morning!" he told a cheering crowd of Boston firefighters.

"Good God," Gillespie responded. "Now he's quoting from Apocalypse Now!"

Republican senator John McCain, a Vietnam War Hero who also battled a vicious smear campaign from Bush surrogates, urged the Chimp to denounce Gillespie's comments.

"We need to stop opening old Vietnam wounds and start working on healing this country," he said.

Kerry agreed. "It's like a snail crawling along the edge of a straight razor. That's my dream. That's my nightmare."

Kerry's campaign tour heads to the Hamptons this weekend, yet he's still weeks away and hundreds of miles up a river that snaked through the war like a main circuit cable plugged straight into Kurtz.