Doctors were flown to Pensacola, Florida yesterday to consider surgical separation of George W. Bush and Senator John McCain after a campaign-related incident in which the two politicians accidentally shared the same brain.

"This is very risky," said Dr. Chaim Kneecapowitz of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "We've never successfully separated two politicians, particularly two conservatives."

"I can't say that John McCain will ever be the same again," said Kneecapwotz. "We might be able to give him some of his former functionality, but I'm not sure he'll ever be able to work with a Democrat again."

"We can save him," Dr. Cheryl Misk-Hugh agreed. "But he won't be talking about campaign finance reform aqain."

Karl Rove has insisted that the first priority in the surgery will be to restore George W. Bush to his former self.

"Not the young boozer and drug taker," he said. "But we're looking to save the former self who was in thrall to corporate interests and the religious right."

The State of Illinois has raised a general "alert" to signal what it is calling the "imminent candidacy" of Alan Keyes for U.S. Senator.

"We just wanted people to be on their guard," said Pierre Dupont XXXV, a minor functionary in the Illinois Department of Vagueness.

Alan Keyes has apparently agreed to enter the Senate race against Barack Obama in Illinois. "It's a genuine matter of concern for most people," said Dupont. "I certainly would want to know before I went about my daily business."

Some have already blamed Keye's candidacy for causing a large drop in job growth reported this morning, while others are concerned that Keyes's forceful but insane oratory will cause crop damage, tornados, and coastal flooding.

Citicorp employees collectively railed against the fact that the Bush Administration yesterday announced an "orange alert" for a threat to their building which, it turns out, was based upon documents that were three or four years old. Employees were angry because, they said, they should have been given the four years off while higher-ups "worked to counter the threat."

"Do you know what I could have done with that time?' said Sally Ackerman, who works in Accounts Receivable.

"Dude," said Larry Hammerman, a 28-year-old filing clerk, "I coulda probably finished, like, playing the entire PlayStation 2 catalogue."

Citicorp has a little known policy that employees may take "emergency leave" during a bomb threat. "And the way I see it is, this is like a bomb threat that has been goin' on for like four damn years," said Hammerman.

High-ranking Citicorp officials scrambled to clarify the policy. "The policy was designed to permit employees to go home for an afternoon in the event of a bomb scare or other threat requiring that the building be evacuated," Juan Upsmanship, a Senior Vice-President, "We do not feel the current situation warrants evacuation."

Bush's Depiction of Kerry As Indecisive Appeals To Voters Having Difficulty Choosing Candidate

The relatively small group of undecided voters chose to vote for John Kerry today following a major campaign by George W. Bush to depict Kerry as a "flip-flopper" who has been unable to decide where to come down on an issue.

"Hey, that's just like me," said Felicity Unction, a formerly undecided voter from Frudge, Ohio. Before picking Kerry, Unction had spent her entire morning deciding which brand of baking soda to buy that afternoon. "There are so many of them," she said.

From the time Kerry became the Party's presumptive nominee last March, Bush has been working hard to depict Kerry as a flip-flopper who has taken both sides of every issue. Today, a Zogby poll found that the few undecided voters remaining in the race -- a historically smaller number than in previous election cycles, due to an extremely polarized electorate -- had chosen to vote for Kerry.

"The Bush campaign forgot that these undecided voters were people who just couldn't make up their minds, even when the choice was obvious," said Zogby. "They immediately warmed to Kerry."

On hearing the news, Karl Rove reportedly banged his head against a large densely packed object - Tom Ridge's head -- in frustration.

It's over -- but it's not over. I still have a couple of "convention posts" to get up here. Someone should have warned me that no one sleeps at these conventions -- you get up at 7 and stay up til 3:30 a.m., and do it all over again the next day. A number of technical problems -- undoubtedly caused by the vast right-wing conspiracy -- plagued me on the first day, and for a while some bloggers couldn't publish to their web sites from the Convention Center because of a mysterious "proxy cache" problem. (At least there wasn't a check caching problem.) Dave Johnson's computer showed signs that his hard drive was dying the first and second day -- his computer would just shut down and check itself now and then -- and those problems simply disappeared later in the week.

I scheduled an interview with a congressman (Carol McCarthy of NY) and they brought me the wrong congressman (the great John Lewis of Atlanta). I should have asked Congressman Lewis about all these New York issues I had questions about anyway, but an intern so touched to meet Lewis that she began sobbing shut me down. (I gave them some privacy.)

We bloggers didn't know what to do when we got there and neither did anybody else. More than a couple reporters and seasoned conventioneers told me they had no idea what they were going to write about.

Richard Avedon's handlers told me they had been given a chair and garbage storage area as their "salon -- and that Avedon was obsessed with the theory that Wolf Blitzer was actually seven different people. As they told me this, Joe Klein shook Avedon's hand just feet away from me, Sam Donaldson stood looking like he had been the victim of taxidermy -- as motionless and erect as his statue in the Museum of Wax here -- and Wolf Blitzer zoomed by, obviously trying to move past before Avedon saw him. Wolf's beard somehow looks less threatening in person than it does on television.

George Stephanopholous, waiting to interview someone in the stands off the floor, looked scared and tired.

A guy working at Dunkin Donuts proudly showed me that his Convention Hall pass was signed on the front by Hillary Clinton and on the back by P. Diddy.

On the train back home, Al Franken came through our car and the man next to me, an amateur photographer, sprang up to tell Franken that he had a picture of Bill O'Reilly picking his nose. (Franken told him to caption it, "Need a cocktail fork, Bill?")

Al Franken looked like he had just woken up and needed to go back to sleep -- the hair on the back of his head was crushed and parts were sticking up pointing every which way. That's the way I feel, and I suspect it will be a day or to before I begin to recover.

But I will, and soon we'll be back in business. . . .

« I take my satire straight, thank you.

Eager To Not Bash Bush, Say Colleagues

Today Republican Democratic Senator Zell Miller -- who has been given a speaking role at the Republican National Convention -- demanded a speaking role at the Democratic Convention.

"I wanted to put in a good word for the achievements of Democrats willing to work closely with Republicans to accomplish real good for Democrats working with Republicans," Miller said.

The winning entry was by Andante of Collective Sigh.

There were many, many fine entries, all of which made me laugh out loud. I'd like to pick some runner ups but I'm just way too tired -- it's 3:00 a.m. and I have a 9:15 a.m. train to catch out of here.

But they'll be coming! Thanks to all who participated, whether you wrote a headline or just laughed at one. It is you who make this a community worth blogging for.

Update: I'm working on the runners-up, and I'll also be posting the swag that Andante will get for her win. . . .

« I take my satire straight, thank you.

TV Stations To Show Reruns Of "Lassie" Tonight

During a rehearsal at the Fleet Center this morning, Senator John Kerry, who was practicing his speech at the central podium, accidentally accepted the Democratic Party's nomination, approximately ten hours early.

"I gratefully accept the nomination of the Democratic Party," he said, and a confused Kucinich delegate on the floor immediately moved to accept the nomination, which was seconded and passed by American Samoa.

Although Kerry immediately realized his mistake and tried to "take back" his acceptance, a member of the Rules Committee informed him that there were "absolutely no take-backsies."

Because Convention rules specify that no nominee may accept a nomination twice, Kerry cannot accept the nomination this evening, and television networks are planning on showing reruns of "Friends," "Seinfeld," and "Lassie."

Security has been so tight at the Fleet Center that even delegates have sometimes had difficulty getting inside.

Hope Campobello, a New Jersey delegate, was on her way back into the Democratic National Convention when she was detained by security personnel because she refused to surrender a liquid. It is prohibited to bring liquids into the convention. As a result, Ms. Campobello missed John Edwards' acceptance speech.

"Hope was on the way," her husband Gino Campobello said. "But she was too damn thirsty to give up her Diet Coke."

Ms. Campobello had managed to get the Diet Coke through the metal detectors, over the barbed wire, and past the Royal Canadian Mounties when a bunch of police dogs, carefully trained to detect soft drinks, sounded the alert.

Hope refused to give up her Diet Coke because Diet Cokes, which are somehow sold by Verizon inside the Fleet Center, cost thirteen dollars a can.

John Edwards, always a champion of the tired and thirsty, refused to give up. "Hope is on the way," he said.

"I don't know. I think Hope got lost or something," said her husband, an hour or so later. "Maybe she just gave up and went home."

And Kucinich was wearing shoes, too.

Opinions You Should Have has learned that John Kerry will be unable to deliver his acceptance speech on Thursday night as planned.

Just moments after Barack Obama delivered what some, even Republicans, are calling "one of the best convention speeches of the past twenty-five years," Kerry developed "a bad case of laryngitis."

"He really can't speak," said a spokesman.

When Kerry accepts the nomination, the DNC is considering rebroadcasting Clinton's Monday night speech, which many called "masterful," Obama's speech, or simply allowing Obama to deliver the acceptance speech for John Kerry.

Earlier yesterday, John Kerry gave a speech to the United Association Of Caffeine Processors, none of whom fell asleep.

Candidate To Go For "Whole Condiment" Sweep

The prestigious Hellman's Mayonnaise family endorsed John Kerry today, in what spokesmen hoped presaged "an entire group of condiment endorsements," known in the political sphere as "the whole jar of pickles."

Kerry, who corralled Heinz Ketchup with a simple marriage ceremony, is hoping to sew up the Krafts sometime in the coming week. Kerry is also trying to branch out: next Tuesday he is to meet with influential and powerful Chef Boyardi.

It is reported that Grey Poupon is on the fence, however. "We are attracted to the Republicans because they are rich, arrogant, and incredibly stuffy," said Lord Poupon earlier today.

"On the other hand, we are liking the Kerry very much," he added, "because we are French."

Feisty "Red-Shirted Warriors" Ready To Rumble

Courageous and strong-hearted delegates from Guam, the U.S. territory that has fielded the smallest number of delegates on the floor, 12, surged forward in what appeared to be a carefully coordinated thrust into Vermont, Connecticut, and Maryland, making a stab at capturing the coveted seating held by Massachussets directly in front of the stage.

Guam's delegation had been relegated to the "cheap seats," a tiny parallegram situated just to the north of the Virgin Islands' 13 delegates and far to the side of the floor. Just about seven minutes ago, during the speech of Gloria Fledt of Planned Parenthood, the Guam delegates screamed, "Massachussetts or bust!" and surged forward, pushing delegates in their way into Minnesota and North Carolina.

The Virgin Islands watched calmly throughout the ordeal, sipping pina coladas and fanning themselves lazily as they watched the chaos. "Guam needs to learn to relax, mahn," said a strangely Jamaican sounding member of the delegation.

Guam's rebellion was finally quelled when they began to listen to the droning, almost hypnotic voice of Phil Angelides , Treasurer of California, and they passed out, which Guam delegate Feroll Magnesia later claimed "had nothing whatsoever to do with our swimming in the Charles' river yesterday."

Especially Enjoy Waffles, Say Media

Moments after the beginning of a special breakfast for bloggers thrown by the Democratic National Convention Committee , members of the conventional media swarmed in and devoured the food on bloggers' plates.

"How long have you been blogging?" said a representative of AP, nibbling on a tasty croissant.

Bloggers melting under the unexpected and intense media scrutiny were glad for a respite from media attention.

"I'm absolutely glad the media so enjoys bacon," said Dave Johnson of Seeing The Forest. "I just wished they hadn't eaten my laptop."

Eric Rice of Audioblog.com made what I'm sure he'll come to see as the epic mistake of offering audioblog accounts to ten of the convention bloggers. Thanks to him, we're going inside the Convention to make history with the first words broadcast by a blogger from the convention floor.