Friends, please believe me that we followed the cone of silence at Saturday's forum. We did not break any rules. Some of you may not have not heard of this term: "cone of silence." You may think we meant to say "code" of silence.  Not so. Let me explain...

It is quite literally a pine cone. You hold it close to your ear. It's out of your control what background noises are in the room -- be they sounds that are advantageous to your presidential campaign or not.

As long as you hold the cone against your ear, (but not so close that the cone pushes the outside of your ear against your ear drum which would result in an unnatural deafening that would be against the spirit of the cone), then you've followed rules.

Okay, some staffer just handed me a story about how I'm being sued by Jackson Browne because we used "Running on Empty" in one of my ads.

I have two questions. One who picked a lame Jackson Browne song? Because whoever did is fired.

And two--do I care what Jackson Browne thinks? I spent five and a half years in a Viet Cong prison camp. Do you think I'm gonna get upset because the King of Southern California Wimp Rock got his feelings hurt?

Let me tell you--being attacked by someone like Jackson Browne is a politician's dream. I'm looking down the list of losers he's backed since he turned "political". Al Gore and John Kerry. Like I say, this is money in the bank. If I knew where to find the internet, I'd put this up on my website.

Hey, I've got an idea. Let's use one of The Eagles songs next! I could win all 50 states!

Friends, my esteemed opponent is a good-looking man. I would call him handsome, even gorgeous. You just look into those eyes of his, that presidential chin, and you can just lose yourself in his beautiful, beautiful promises of ending war and solving the energy crises if we only pump our tires up.

So in no way was my new campaign ad attacking him. My advertising people merely innocently asked some attractive young white women what they thought of Obama, and they replied that they loved his "aura," his "soft eyes," and wanted him to "ride me all night long while reading his 2004 Democratic National Convention speech." (That last one we didn't put in the ad.)

Heck, it's a compliment. I'm just saying he has lots and lots of young white women who would be his groupies. I don't have any groupies, because my wife is enough for me. I don't understand why people imply there is a racist undertone to the ad. I'm congratulating Obama on being an incredibly hot piece of man meat who would have the chance, if he got elected, to get more white girls in his bed than Bill Clinton after a sax concert.

My campaign is all about reaching out to people who are looked down upon by my skinny opponent, who actually asked a farmer if he'd gone into Whole Foods lately and checked the price of arugula. The farmer said he hadn't seen any since The Return of Godzilla, in which Arugula was defeated in an epic tag-team match with Rodan and Mothra.

No, the reason I'm going to win this thing is that Obama doesn't understand ordinary Americans. People like I met at a giant motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota the other day. Good hard-working folks like the guy with the pony-tail and the snake eyes tattoo named "Pig Pen" and his old lady, Wanda. Pig Pen is a, well he didn't actually say what he does for a living, but he struggles to make ends meet what with gas at $4 a gallon and sales of cocaine flat due to uncertain job prospects for college students.

Obama can't relate to regular folk like the topless women you'll find at fun, family events such as the Miss Buffalo Chip contest. He's spent his whole adult life in academia, where the sight of a topless woman sets off a spirited discussion of the semiotics of the female mammary gland. Whoop-de-freaking-doo--am I right Pig Pen? I thought so.

It's August 4th which makes today a very special day for a certain Democratic candidate. That's right, Barack Obama turns forty seven today, and I call shenanigans. Why, you ask?  Well it's pretty clear, my friends, that Barack is staging this whole "celebration" to try and snag some of my magic.

Getting older, Barack? Very original. We both know where you got that from. It's obvious that you've seen my cunning strategy of aging before the public eye and you want some of this for yourself. Well I'll tell you this, the American People know who the real aging candidate in this election is. 

So happy God damn birthday, Barack Obama. Just know that you're never going to get to my level of ancient. Well, you probably will. You're a politician with fantastic security people and you're in good shape.  But by the time you get there, I'll be even older. Or dead.

Booya!

Jeez Barack, is there a world leader you haven't met this week? I've been busy too -- seeing influential people in THIS country. And not just because I'm an isolationist with designs to build a 30-foot fortress around the country (and a sweet moat!). It's cause this America first outlook is giving me lots of momentum (McCainentum?) in pivotal swing states.

While you've broken pita with a litany of smelly foreigners, I've sat down with these important AMERICANS:

Ronald McDonald: It's not all smiles and happy meals over on Burgler Boulevard. Imagine a world where the dollar menu has to be raised to $1.50 or -- gasp -- $2.00. This will not happen on my watch, and I'm willing to offer the billion-dollar company subsidies to ensure no misnomer with that popular menu occurs. It is already happening in our airports people! 

The President of the United Steelworkers of America. To be honest I did this just so I could pad the resume of important-sounding people meetings. He was really boring and wouldn't let me try out a blow torch, so I spent the whole meeting fantasizing about having blow torches for arms.

So as you've probably heard, The Times rejected my editorial on Iraq, a week after publishing Barack's. I'm sure you expect this to trigger my pulsing, white-hot rage and to throw out words like "biased", "unethical" and "wouldn't use their paper to wipe my ass if all the toilet paper in the world mysteriously disappeared."

But instead I will calmly lay out the argument I tried to make for the Times:

Barack is wrong. If we leave Iraq, America will die. It will be your fault for electing him. Once we die, God -- who is American -- will send you to hell for electing him.

That was just the headline of my editorial. Other salient points that I brought up:

• Withdrawal's don't work. Both of my biological sons and one of my daughters were conceived this way. (We don't call them mistakes. Rather "happy accidents".)
• The quality of life in Iraq is higher than in the States. Remember those images of kids playing soccer in the streets with battles nearby. In the US only the upper class can afford to fuel Dodge Caravans and all those orange slices so these are some pretty well-to-do brats.

Friends, to paraphrase a quote from that bowling documentary, The Big Lebowski, politics is not 'Nam. There are rules, goddamit!

These days, nothing makes sense to me. My aides are always looking at these little doo-dads in their hands and pressing buttons, and when I asked what they were, they lied to me. Blackberries are much smaller and jucier than those things. But more pressingly, Obama is turning this campaign into a circus, but not the fun kind. How? For instance:

He's raising more money than me. Look, I'm not a racist by any means. I fought beside many colored people in 'Nam, and when my mother asked the mayor of Newark to shine her shoes, I told her that was bad. But I'm the old white guy in this race--I'm supposed to have the money! Seriously, $52 million in a month? It's like he has a magic box that allows his supporters to give him money without sending a check through the mail.

People are speculating that a Republican will be his running mate. Look, just so no one gets confused: I'm the Republican candidate! Me! Republicans campaign with Republicans, Democrats with Democrats. What will be next? Men marrying men?

I don't know about you, but I've had enough of people criticizing my military record. Six years as a POW isn't enough for you Wes Clark? You want me to go back on weekends, you little twerp?

So it's time to break out the "n" word in my campaign against Barack "Sadam Hussein" Obama. No, not that one. Not even "nappy-headed". I mean--"nice".

My wife Cindy is way nicer than Michelle Obama. Michelle Obama looks like the woman who tells you, after you've waited for 45 minutes at the Registry of Motor Vehicles, that you're in the wrong line. And it's time for her coffee break. And she doesn't give a flying fuck at a rolling donut what you think when you threaten to complain to her supervisor.

Cindy is worth $100 million because of Budweiser distributorships--and she's totally bitchin'. And she owns part of the Arizona Diamondbacks. And she's all mine. Deal with it.