Speaking from the newly named “Mute-Button Express,” McCain charged that the liberal media is conspiring to engineer his defeat not only by covering his sparsely-attended town hall meetings, but by actually sending reporters to the press conferences scheduled by McCain himself.

A McCain campaign spokesman, speaking anonymously — since he was no longer allowed to speak at all – added that McCain was shocked at the attention he received last week during his visit to the International House of Bratwurst in Columbus, Ohio, since he was only there to ogle the waitresses decked out like St. Pauli Girls.

Rumors abound that to further this “dope-a-dope” stategy, McCain plans to pull out of the nationally-televised debates this Fall, and to let Obama debate himself, much in the style of Stephen Colbert. Republican strategists heartily endorsed this tactic, which will then allow the right-wing “527s” to attack Obama as “two-faced.”

Omnipresent pundit Pat Buchanan, appearing on every single cable network simultaneously, also hailed this new strategy as “ingenius,” claiming that by McCain “disappearing completely from the radar, the campaign truly does become a referendum on Obama.”

Asked how he plans to spend the rest of the campaign not campaigning, McCain stated that he would probably take a long vacation where reporters could not follow him, “first to Czechoslovakia, then on to a place where I could literally put my feet up, The Ottoman Empire.”

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BLOGWORTHIES:

On a similar note, BuzzFlash’s P.M. Carpenter is optimistic about Obama’s Fortuitous Enemies.

Juan Cole’s perspective on the latest mayhem in Iraq.

Daily Show and Colbert Report recaps, at One Good Move.

NOW on PBS: John Edwards on Poverty — at Crooks & Liars.