New York, NY, May 17 (CNN) — Following yesterday's suicide car bombing near a U.S. checkpoint in central Baghdad on Monday and the continuing drop in President Bush's approval rating, Presidential hopeful Nick Esposito today announced that he will be working alongside the Administration in crafting an exit strategy for the country's involvement in Iraq. Such endgame planning is crucial, Esposito said, as it has been the lack of such a strategy that the political left has seen as a vulnerability with which to attack the Right, the Far Right, the Loony Right, and the Esposito For America Campaign.
    Acknowledging the importance of the June 30th deadline for the handover of sovereignity in order to free the Right ahead of the Republican National Convention and Election Day, Esposito will be working closely with L. Paul Bremer in the implementation of Esposito's plan, which has won conditional approval by both President Bush and embattled Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.*
     Under provisions of the plan, on or about June 20th Iraq will be placed on eBay in a seven-day no-reserve auction. With the conclusion of the auction on June 27th, the winning bidder will have three days in order to remit payment (cashier's check or international money order only; Paypal may be used, but will incur a 10% surcharge on the final selling price). The State Department is expected this week to announce if it will permit a "Buy It Now" option in order to further increase the likelihood of meeting the June 30th deadline.
     It is believed that the listing fees will be completely paid for from the expected profits from the sale, but we've been wrong about that sort of thing from Iraq before.

Washington, D.C., April 29: The White House this morning demanded additional concessions for today's Cheney/Bush session with the  National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (aka the 9/11 Commission). 
     Recognizing the likelihood that their testimony may leave them open to political attack, the Administration had previously negotiated several concessions from the Commission:

• President Bush could bring a friend along;
• The meeting would be held behind closed doors, with no public witnesses;
• There will be no video or audio recording of the proceedings and no stenographer, although a note-taker would be permitted;
• The testimony would not be under oath, although at his discretion Cheney "may or may not" pinky-swear that he's telling the truth. 

     The new demands for the meeting, set to begin today at 9:30am EDT, are:

• The note-taker must be an ESL student;
• All notes must be written in Pig Latin;
• At the end of the session the notes must be soaked in gin and eaten; and
• Committee members may not directly address the President and Vice President. All questions must be submitted via a Speak-And-Spell.

Washington, D.C., April 27 (MSNBC) — Demonstrating his strength as a uniter and not a divider, Nick Esposito is facing allegations this week from both the Bush and Kerry campaigns regarding a widely-reported 1971 incident in which Esposito said he "threw his medals" over the Capitol fence.
    The flap began following a 1971 antiwar demonstration, in which Esposito claims to have thrown his commendations over the Capitol fence to protest Congress' support of the growing conflict in Vietnam.
     Further investigation into the antiwar protest¹ showed that during the 1971 demonstration² nearly 800 veterans "gave back" medals, ribbons, dog tags and other military items by tossing them over the fence near the Capitol. In Esposito's case, the items were described as medals -- two for marching band, three for bowling, and one which was reportedly a plastic replica of the "Courage" badge given to the Lion in the 1939 MGM film "The Wizard Of Oz."
     Esposito had previously testified that following the protest he also threw over the fence the medals of two other veterans who were walking nearby. There are conflicting accounts as to whether this was voluntary on the part of the two veterans, who had been passing the Capitol on their way to dinner.

Medals, Ribbons and a Tissue of Lies

     Confronted with this latest allegation⁵, Esposito struck a defensive position, stating that "TP'ing the Capitol was a legitimate protest of an illegitimate war," and noted that he has evidence that another, unnamed candidate once left a burning paper bag full of dog poop on the steps of the Supreme Court, knocked on the door and ran away.
     Vice President Dick Cheney reminded reporters that it was 33 years ago, and that it is time to move ahead.

¹ by people who never had any medals or ribbons.
² now illegal under the Patriot Act. Under Section 17 of the Act, which nullifies the Statute Of Limitations in these cases, participants of the 1971 protest -- when found -- are being sent to Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo.
³ by people who avoided the draft but are still pissy because they weren't invited to the antidraft demonstration.
⁴ which, under the directorship of J. Edgar Hoover, was later incorrectly labeled "Kevin's Birthday Party," misfiled and lost.
⁵ by reporters who are bitter and empty inside because they were born too late for Watergate.

Undisclosed Location, CO, April 19 (Reuters) — The Esposito For America campaign acknowledges that this is a busy time for much of the world, what with it trying to get its taxes mailed or preparing for final exams or reserving flights or rooms for its summer vacation, and that it is likely for one of these reasons that no other country has yet stepped forward to replace Spain and send its troops into Iraq, where they would be welcomed as liberators exactly as if they were from the U.S.
    Unlike the other candidates, the Esposito For America campaign is not just pointing fingers and whining about this turn of events, we're doing something about it by arranging a special promotion:

Click here for the coupon, and act soon — these troop openings won't last! (Well, Rummy and Bremer say that they'll exist for at least a few more years, but still, hurry. Please. Really, for the love of God, please hurry.)

Boston, MA, April 17 (Reuters) — This weekend, Spain — whom the U.S. graciously permitted into the prestigious "Coalition Of the Willing" last year — and Spanish-speaking Alex Rodriguez both appeared in their home openers after having recently switched teams from Good to Evil.
     We hope that before Spain (previously Good, now Evil) goes through with its threat to withdraw from Iraq (previously Evil, now Good) its 1,300 troops (previously Good Troops, now Evil Weasel Troops), they take note that A-Rod's new team (previously Good Sox, now Eternally Evil Yankees) lost both games in its opener.
     In response to Spain's leadership arrogantly obeying the wishes of its electorate, the Esposito For America campaign is sponsoring a Spain-directed bill in the U.S. Congress in a drive to duplicate the effectiveness of H.R. 1069 (which replaced "French" Fries on the Congressional cafeteria menu with "Freedom" Fries).
     We look forward to the bill's rapid passage through both houses of Congress and its promised signature by the President, so that the Congressional pharmacy can begin to stock Freedom Fly.

Washington, D.C., April 13 (AP) —Introducing a new weapon in the War On Terror, President Bush Tuesday night appeared before the cameras and vetted reporters wearing the first prime-time-ready "mesmer-tie," a device being developed by the Pentagon's psych-ops division for use in the Iraqi conflict and other theaters of war.

The technology

     The mesmer-tie works in combination with platform services resident in the government-developed "V-chip." When live or recorded images of the device are played through standard NTSC and PAL monitors, the device strobes and pulsates in a manner designed to "short-circuit" critical-thinking pathways in the brain, leaving the target vulnerable to stimuli and sub-cognitive suggestions; these are simultaneously generated in single- and half-frame density via the V-chip, and subsequently displayed.
     Last night's test was performed at the half-frame setting to limit the impact to viewers of the live broadcast; full-frame messaging is required to be of sufficient persistence to be recorded by VCRs and DVRs. Messages encoded through the mesmer-tie and subsequently decoded by the viewer's V-chip and displayed over the press conference stream reportedly included, "SADDAM = OSAMA," "WE EXPECTED THIS," "WAR IS PEACE," "NO APOLOGIES," and in an apparent nod to a sponsor, "GLORIOUS APPEARING."

Hope and concern