"Religion is piffle," writes Dr. Warren Howser of GBH University, "but its socio-political ramifications cannot be ignored. The emergence of Karl Rove, a satanic archetype, along with the huntress-fertility goddess figure of Sarah Palin into the national consciousness may portend the destruction of the Democratic Party and, indeed, the very fabric of Western thought."

Dr. Howser's dire prediction is proving to be alarmingly prescient. Democrats are expressing hysterical reactions to an imagined Karl Rove and even more irrational ravings directed at the Governor of Alaska.

"Run! Run!" shouted Amerigo Way, spokesperson for Freethinkers Against Irrationality. "It's Fertilla the Hun!! She'll push us so far back into the closet that we'll be smelling Aunt Minnie's drawers for fifty years! Karl Rove has loosed the beast!"

"How can a woman betray women like this?" asked Billy Jo Kopechne, of Feminists Against Foggy Notions. "She will set feminism back fifty years. This baby-hatching harlot in spiked heels does not speak for women. Only women who wear sensible shoes and repair their own appliances speak for women. This is the most cynical political ploy I have ever seen. There is no doubt that Karl Rove is behind it."

"If Palin cares so much about special needs children, why doesn't she support the destruction of human embryos to heal them?" asked Mortimer Dillman, echoing a Democratic Party talking point. "The woman makes no sense."

Many Democrats have reported sightings of Karl Rove in unusual places.

"Karl Rove appeared to me in a dream," confessed Abba Bin Dabba, of the little known punk group Papa Pustule. "He was holding a bottle of cognac and chanting indecipherable mantras. I'm scared."

"It's tragic. We had a national debate about important thinks like change, audacity, and hope and along comes Karl Rove with the Walmart Wannabe and starts talking reform. We don't need reform, we need change. Any idiot can see that. Karl Rove is the essence of evil," said Marvin Finkeral, part-time community organizer. "I can feel him in my bones. I know he's out there. Lurking. Waiting."

"I looked at Karl Rove and he caused me to lose my baby," confided Emily Wankette, girl blogger. "I felt it shrivel and die within me. That man is the devil."

Vice President Dick Cheney was unavailable for comment.

Gunner Sykes