Given the months of bad news and administration blunders, Kerry should be 30 points ahead of George Bush instead of wherever he is. Should the ineptness of Kerry and his campaign managers finally bring him down to defeat it will be the same as if Herbert Hoover had defeated Franklin Roosevelt in 1932.

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One of our far flung secret agents has called in with a report on the hows and wheres of the 380 tons of high explosives which disappeared out of an Iraqi ammunition dump. You may rest easy. The insurgents don't have it. The French do. Out of their well known hatred for the United States the French have bred up a species of undercover ant. These ants penetrated the guard set around the dump and, grain by grain, were able to surreptitiously remove all 766,080 English pounds of the stuff, carrying it across the Middle East and southern Europe to a vast cave in the Pyrenees where it is safely stored next to 55 million flu shots.

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The Republicans are running ads claiming the trial lawyers are responsible for the flu shot shortage. This is a typical bit of Republican understatement. Why are the Republicans covering up for the trial lawyers? Why don't they tell the American people the truth which is the trial lawyers are the ones who do the partial birth abortion baby killings? Trial lawyers are behind the drop in factory employment in Ohio and Pennsylvania, but not in New York or Illinois where it's the liberals who are to blame. It has also been established that the trial lawyers are the cause of over fifteen common kinds of cancer and two thirds of the Federal government deficit. If re-elected President Bush has said that he will ask Congress for the power to draft trial lawyers and send them to Iraq where they can work their mischief on religious fanatics who don't care whether or not they get cancer.

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Congratulations are flowing into Ariel Sharon for his engineering the Israeli"pullout" from the Gaza Strip, leaving those 1.3 million plus Arabs to rot in their own stink. Being the thoughtful person he is, Prime Minister Sharon is making sure that the Gazans or Gazanians or Gazites will not be allowed to wander about the world seeking revenge for what they mistakenly imagine to be their mistreatment. Israel will control all land, sea and air access to the Strip and its inhabitants, thus insuring its continued existence as a desert Gulag. If there is such a thing as justice Herr Sharon will be awarded next year's Nobel Peace Prize. Should the Swedes, who are unreliable and sentimental when it comes to the Middle East, bestow the prize on some obscure mombo under house arrest in darkest Africa and omit recognizing Senior Sharon for his irenic contributions to world comity, President Bush could confer the Medal of Freedom on him. We owe Gaspadin Sharon so much. After the famous peace process failed and the Mitchell Plan failed and the Tenent Plan failed and the Anthony Zinni Plan failed and the Road Map failed, it is he who has at long last settled all outstanding questions in Gaza. This should also help President Bush in his re-election campaign whether or not reports are true that upwards of 200,000 Israelis are voting by very absentee ballot. Shalom.