Commentators at MSNBC were livid Monday when CNN announced it had hired Tina Fey to play Sarah Palin for mock interviews with the Republican nominee for Vice President.

"This is bad news for America," whined Keith Olbermann. "All news networks should have equal access to Tina Fey. She interviews much better than Sarah Palin, and is much more accessible. We have been forced to re-write the news for the next eleven days because of CNN's greed."

"As the line blurs between reportage and the absurd, it is absolutely necessary that people who play political figures be readily available to anyone who wants to do a hatchet job in the name of journalistic integrity," echoed Pat Buchanan.

"Signing Ms. Fey to a two-month contract assures that no shortage of Palin material will stop us from daily reports maligning Governor Palin," crowed Wolf Blitzer, of CNN. "We will save enough money on film editing to pay Ms. Fey's contract. No one can predict what Governor Palin will say or do. Instead of spending hours editing video to present Sarah Palin in the worst possible light, we will be able to script our interviews. This decision benefits our viewers and saves us a few bucks."

"Tina and I have always worked well together," said Cambell Brown. "I look forward to working with her. No one can feed me a straight line like Tina."

Reports that Fox News had plans to interview a marionette closely resembling Barack Obama were quickly denied by Bill O'Reilly. "We thought about it, but decided that a hand puppet would be more appropriate. Cheaper, too."

Vice President Dick Cheney was unavailable for comment.

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Rumors from unconfirmed sources flew on the campaign trail Monday that Barack Obama had hired former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson to toughen up the candidate's image.

"It makes perfect sense for Obama to hire Tyson," said Keith Olbermann, who still has a job at MSNBC. "He definitely needs to toughen up his image after being beat up by an Alaskan bimbo who can't pronounce nuclear. Iron Mike has tremendous respect in the black community. Maybe some of it will rub off on Obama."

"I hate to say it, but Obama is looking pretty wimpy," added Anderson Cooper of CNN. "Nobody really believes that Obama could actually take Sarah Palin one on one on the basketball court. She would probably slip by him for an easy lay-up. That would be political suicide."

Recent polls show Obama slipping among voters over 35 with bowling averages higher than 100. Experts say that Obama cannot win without them.

"It's crunch time," said political analyst James Carville, who is fond of sports metaphors. "Obama needs to fight his way out of the corner and Mike Tyson is just the man to show him how. He needs to stick and move."

Savvy political insiders believe that Obama's move to hire Tyson is a direct response to Chuck Norris stumping for the McCain/Palin ticket. Mr. Norris recently beat up Arianna Huffington on a national television broadcast and sending Tyson after Sarah Palin would even the score. Still, there are those who doubt the efficacy of the move.

"Barack Obama couldn't even kill an inflationary tax proposal, let alone a bull moose in full rut," said syndicated columnist Ann Coulter. "If he sends Tyson after Palin, look for Iron Mike to go down in three."

Vice President Dick Cheney was unavailable for comment.

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An unconfirmed report from an Alaskan blogger that Sarah Palin's home was burglarized and her family's personal belongings scattered on the lawn had Obama supporters smiling knowingly Thursday.

"You can't blame the burglar," said Emily Wonkette, girl reporter. "That's just what happens when you buy your locks from Walmart. Everyone knows that she conducted government business there, so the public has a right to know the contents of her underwear drawer. The probability that secret government documents that would affect the troopergate investigation were hidden under one of her negligees is incredibly high. Experts agree on this."

"If George Bush can spy on the American people looking for terrorists, the burglarization of Sarah Palin's home is perfectly justified," said Glenn Greenwald, a security expert. "I am pleased to see this woman's hypocrisy revealed. The phony outrage of the Palin supporters is enough to send Lindsay Lohan to a nunnery."

"You have to be a real idiot to get your home broken into," said Ellsworth Mauger, who has an opinion on nearly everything. "What can you expect from someone who had the governor's office wall-papered bordello red? Interestingly, I went to the Sarah Palin name generator site and my name would be Pontificating Moron if Sarah was my mother. I think someone hacked that, too."

CNN reporter Wolf Blitzer took a sympathetic tone. "It is a sad thing for someone to have their home burglarized, but Ms. Palin should have known that sort of thing can happen when you run for Vice President against the most wonderful human being the world has ever known. If she's such an ardent Christian, why didn't God protect her? I hardly think a faith-based security system for your home is adequate, but what can you expect from a nut job Evangelical who will force women to have babies and attack Russia the minute she takes office?"

"If Ms. Palin had nothing to hide, why didn't she just leave the house unlocked?" asked Barbara Wonkette, Emily's smarter sister. "It seems suspicious to me. I want full disclosure of everything scattered on that lawn. Who does she think she is fooling?"

Vice President Dick Cheney was unavailable for comment.

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"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.

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Progressives who are much smarter than you and not afraid to say so are terrified that Sarah Palin, whose paltry resume includes being a mayor and the governor of Alaska, may be elected Vice President of the United States and be only a heartbeat away from the Presidency.

Here are five reasons why:

1. She is a Christian. There is something about Christians that terrifies progressives who are much smarter than you and not afraid to admit it. Christians, having the capacity for both preaching and public hymn singing, should be expelled from any and all public office because Thomas Jefferson once wrote a private letter to the Danbury Baptists that suggested a wall of separation between church and state. It is acceptable for Christians to go to their churches and speak about moral issues where no one but Christians will hear them and they can do no damage. If a Christian woman has the effrontery to actually run for office on an agenda based on Christian morals and values she must be stopped using any means available, including the suggestion that she faked giving birth to a child that is really her adolescent daughter's.

2. She is a Creationist. Progressives who are much smarter than you and not afraid to admit it know that all Christians believe that the universe was created in seven days and that the earth is 6000 years old. This belief is called Intelligent Design. They are much too smart to buy into the false notion that Intelligent Design is the teleological analysis of living things, primarily because they have never bothered to look up the word teleological. They have no need to because they know that if evidence of design is detected in living things, that implies a designer. They sensibly assume that if design was detected in living things, the public school system would collapse from the influx of Christian wackos who would, predictably, inundate the school system with preaching, hymn singing, and other unsavory practices. That certainly is not science. Science is the notion that the universe happened because it happened and there is no reason to inquire why it happened because it happened and we have sound evidence that it did. Governor Palin suggested that both Intelligent Design and Evolution be discussed in classrooms, certainly a dangerous thing to do. We cannot have students actually discussing and evaluating ideas in public schools. There mere thought of it ignites terror in the hearts of progressives who are much smarter than you and not afraid to admit it.

3. She believes that marriage should be between a man and a woman. Progressives who are much smarter than you and not afraid to say so are surprised that the American public is too stupid to understand that the right for same sex marriage was right there in the constitution all along and we just missed it. Anyone who disagrees with that salient fact is, most likely, a Christian, from Alaska, or otherwise mentally deficient. The constitution may only be read properly by people who have the uncanny ability to find meaning in text that was never there before. Governor Palin obviously lacks that faculty and is unfit for high office.

4. She was Mayor of Wasilla, Alaska. Wasilla, Alaska has a population of about 6000. Progressives who are much smarter than you and not afraid to admit it are terrified that the former mayor of a small town might become Vice President for good reason. People from small towns, by definition, have small town mentalities. The small town mentality is responsible for witch burnings, hangings, picnics, and the nefarious practices of preaching and public hymn singing. The mere thought of someone from a small town being involved in public policy is enough to make progressives who are much smarter than you and not afraid to say so pee their pants.

5. She has no foreign policy experience. Progressives who are much smarter than you and not a bit afraid to admit it realize that governors should concern themselves with foreign policy in case they are called on to be a Vice Presidential candidate. How a governor should gain foreign policy experience, since foreign policy is the domain of the federal government remains a mystery, but that does not stop them from being terrorized. Governor Palin should have set up a mini-state department in Alaska and used taxpayer money to visit Europe, Asia, and Africa to schmooze with various heads of state and see the sights. Instead, she sold the state-owned private jet she inherited from the former governor and turned the money over to the state. A woman who refuses to fly on private jets to foreign countries at tax-payer expense has no business being Vice President of the United States.

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Reports from a crack team of reporters, lawyers, researchers, and forensic analysts sent by the Barack Obama campaign to Alaska to properly vet little known vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin filtered in late Tuesday. They paint a chilling portrait of a disturbed woman who is not ready to assume the Presidency should John McCain be run over by a pie wagon or bored to death by Keith Olbermann.

"Sarah was always a strange little girl," opined Harriet Nelson, Sarah Palin's second grade teacher. "If I remember correctly, she used to chew on crayons. Her parents always ostentatiously bought her the big 128 crayon box so she could lord it over the other kids. I still shiver when I remember the way those silver and gold lumps of wax used to cling to her teeth-- not the front ones, she had lost those. She always colored the sky pink in all her pictures. I recommended her for special counseling, but her father used his influence to stop it. I still think if she had received proper counseling, she might have turned out normal."

Edward Haskell, an unemployed interior decorator now living in Skagway told an even more sordid story concerning Ms. Palin's school days. "I used to drop my pencil on the floor all the time to look up Sarah's skirt when we were in the 5th grade in Mrs. Cleaver's class," said the sorrowful Haskell. "She always pretended like she didn't notice, but I could tell she was enjoying it. That's the kind of girl she was. The one day, just out of the blue, she belted me on the head with that great big notebook she always carried around. It hurt. It hurt real bad. I sincerely believe that was what activated my gay gene. Things never went well for me after that. I drifted from school to school, job to job, occasionally picking up work decorating the odd hunting cabin, but I can safely say she turned my life into a grim, nihilistic nightmare from which I may never awake. Do you know Anderson Cooper?"

"If it wasn't for her dad, Sarah would never have been the point guard on the Wasilla basketball team," stated Helen Crump, a teacher now living in Mayberry, North Carolina. "She was really crummy at the pick and roll, if you ask me. She wouldn't pass, either, a real ball hog. I did like it when she would try to penetrate and some big Eskimo girl would hack her good. She missed about half the time at the free throw line, too. She just thought she was such hot stuff."

Other serious allegations concerning Ms. Palin have emerged. Rick Nelson, a high school sweetheart, alleges that the McCain's laughable pick for Vice President wore ugly shoes to the prom. Spring Byington, a long term resident of Wasilla, recounted an incident wherein Ms. Palin cut in front of her in the line at Walmart. Theodore Cleaver, a high school classmate, says he never really liked her much because she just thought she was soooooo popular.

"Clearly," said Bill Maher, because that is what he does, "Ms. Palin has about as much business being President as I do pretending to be a political analyst. Ms. Palin has left a string of wrecked psyches, frustrated basketball players, and existential wanderers in a meaningless cosmos in her wake. You can put lipstick on a warthog, but it is still a warthog."

Vice President Dick Cheney was unavailable for comment.

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