NEW YORK, New York - Acting on information erroneously published in The New York Post, GOP officials began a mudslinging assault on Richard Gephardt, believing him to be Kerry's new running mate. "It was nothing personal, Dick knows that," explained GOP leader Michael Langhorn, "But once the duck hits the water, the dog's gotta snap it up." Democrats are taking the attacks in stride. "We knew they'd lambaste whoever John picked," said one, "It's just a shame it had to be a decent guy like Richard."

"It was nothing personal, Dick knows that." -- GOP leader Michael Langhorn

"Our earlier statements about Richard Gephardt, upon reflection, were probably not in the best possible taste, and may not even be true," said a statement issued by the GOP. Those statements included such terms as "atheist", "drunkard", and "wife-swapper". The only positive comments were praise for Gephardt's recently overcoming his crack addiction, a claim his representatives denied, then clarified, then denied again. "We apologize for our ill-timed release of this information," the statement went on to say, "Our efforts will now be fully directed to the real enemy of America, John Ashcroft."

A subsequent statement retracted the "Ashcroft" commented and replaced it with a reference to "John Kerry's current running mate", without actually naming John Edwards. "We know his name," one Republican spokesman assured reporters, "But we don't want to get too comfortable with it because with all of Kerry's flip-flops, we expect it might change again."

"It's just a poor attempt to cover their error. They ought to just own up to it, like we did," said Post editor Col Allan, "We blew it, we admitted it, we even had some fun with it. If they'd do the same, we could all go home happy."
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