“Pull all the troops out of Iraq now! NOW!” President Bush shouted into the phone.
“Mr. President, what’s happening?” asked a bemused Tony Snow.
Bush tossed a newspaper at him. “The New York Times has an editorial saying we can win in Iraq! That means something really bad must be going on down there, and I don’t want our troops just sitting around waiting to find out what it is!”
“The editorial was by the Brookings Institution, not the New York Times itself,” Tony told him. “It was pretty well informed.”
“So its not some huge trap the New York Times and al Qeda have set up for America?” Bush asked cautiously.
“I doubt it.”
Bush picked up the phone. “Cancel the withdrawal order; tell all the troops to stay where they are. Thanks.” He hung up. “This is why I don’t read the newspaper; it’s gets me all worked up.”
“Anyway, we need–”
“Wait one sec.” Bush picked up the phone once more. “Also, disable those nuclear missiles I launched… Yeah, no rush. Just do it sometime before they hit. Thanks.” He hung up the phone. “So, snowman, I feel hungry for pie!”

“If generals are saying the surge is working, why should we listen to you, a Senator Reid, a doddering old man?” asked a reporter at the press conference.
“Bah! Generals don’t know anything! The only one who knows anything are those… um… smelly people I talk to.” He turned to his aide. “What are they called again?”
“Left-wing bloggers.”
Reid turned back to the reporters. “Yes, the bloggers. Everything is going poorly in Iraq. It is doomed! The efforts of the troops there are in vain! They’re doomed! Dooooomed!”
“Why is your tie missing?” another reporter asked.
“On the way here, a mugger took it along with my wallet. He also started brutalizing my wife. I thought of verbally protesting his actions, but decided not to get involved. Who knows if I wouldn’t have just made things worse?”
“Is your wife all right?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care! That doesn’t affect the Democratic Party!”
Reid stormed off with his fellow Democrats into a nearby conference room. “Patriotism, happiness, military victory: These are the demons we must slay if we want to ensure a the Democrats win big in 2008,” Reid told his people. “I don’t like the idea of people thinking that things could be going well in Iraq; success there could be the most devastating blow to the Democratic Party since the end of slavery! We were counting on al Qaeda to continuing killing lots of people in Iraq, but if they’re slacking, we’ll have to do it ourselves.” Reid turned to a DNC intern. “You! I need you to go over to Iraq and blow up lots of people.”
“Um… I don’t know…”
Reid grabbed him by the collar. “When you joined the DNC, you knew it could be a suicide mission!”
“Do you think maybe you’re losing perspective here?” the intern asked. “Maybe it’s better we change positions instead of supporting killing the innocent.”
“I have perspective!” Reid shouted. “How many Democratic defeats is worth an Iraqi’s life? I say, it’s better all the Iraqis die a horrible death than the Democrats lose one election! Now go to Iraq and blow people up! Try to kill some troops, too; they lean Republican, anyway.”
Reid’s aide took the intern aside. “He’s just cranky and needs a nap.”
There was a knock at the door and a police officer came in.
“Good! Did you find my tie?” Reid asked.
“No, but we have your wife and she’s okay.”
“Does she have my tie?”
“I don’t think so.”
“But did you find out who pooped in my car?”
“Yes. That was you.”
“Thanks, officer,” Reid’s aide said as he ushered the man out of the room. “It’s time for the Senator’s nap.” When the aide turned around, Reid already had his head on the table and was fast asleep in a puddle of drool.
“Doooomed. Dooooomed.” Reid uttered in his sleep.
“So I don’t have to go to Iraq and blow people up?” the intern asked Reid’s aide.
“No… at least not this far away from the election.”