OP leaders announced at a press conference yesterday that Vice President Dick Cheney would be gradually written out of the Republican party over the next few months.

"As everything progresses," said President Bush, "you'll be seeing less and less of Dick Cheney until his contract expires. He'll sink more into the background, with the idea being eventually we'll replace him entirely."

Insiders say that disappointing approval ratings and a lack of appeal among female constituents 18-49 led to the decision to do away with the Vice President. An unidentified source, namely some guy we didn't know, described the Vice President as "a bad idea from the get-go."

For months rumors persisted that the diminishing role of the Vice President was a sign that producers of the Republican party were unhappy with his performance. Continually the president denied such claims, but with recent announcements, many are taking it as proof positive the Vice President failed to live up to expectations. President Bush disagrees.

"Dick Cheney was fine for the time and place, he was instrumental to early success of the Bush administration," the president said. "But he's grown artistically, as we all have, and would prefer to pursue solo projects at this time. And we in the administration feel like the Vice President position would be better served by someone else as well, so the parting is amicable."

GOP analyst Milton Monopoly has another version of the story.

"Let's face it, the president is a much bigger hit than anyone expected. You got this fairly young tough-guy president and who's covering his back? An ancient legislator," Monopoly said. "Okay, he was interesting in the beginning, the reckless young president and the wisened old congressman with the bad ticker, sort of like a 'Jake and the Fat Man' team up, or 'Hardcastle and McCormick.' But he never pulled the ratings like Bush did, so they axed him. It was obvious from a few months in he was on his way out, then when the terrorist plot was in full steam he's mysteriously missing all the time when as Vice President he should be knee-deep in it like the president. Everybody in Washington knew Cheney was being written out, especially Cheney."

Monopoly suggested Cheney would be replaced immediately, and a replacement may already be on the way in.

"Some people are saying Guiliani, but that's unrealistic, the president won't have some guy who's a huge threat to him. The more obvious choice, and what I think they're going to do, is Colin Powell. There's a lot of excitement there, with Powell being a former military man and Bush an administrator with not as much 'street' experience. Plus, there's always the exciting racial tension. You're talking a party that everybody will be tuning in to."

truck laden with hundreds of packages of a mysterious white powder attempted to cross the border here today, drawing scrutiny from the Border Patrol and local law enforcement officers concerned that it could be just the latest in a series of terrorist attacks involving Anthrax. After closer investigation, a spokesman revealed, with some relief, that the substance turned out to be simply 94% pure Colombian cocaine.

"We were awful worried at first," said Sheriff Fluff Drivel of nearby Littlehead City. "These days everyone's on edge whenever they see white powder. Hell, my wife refuses to bake anything that involves using flour right now."

Drivel's partner, Officer Roy Dither, added, "I was the one to investigate the powder itself. You remember that TV show, I think it was 'Banacek' or maybe it was 'Mannix,' that one back in the '70s? Anyway, it was just like that episode of 'The Streets of San Francisco,' where they caught that guy with the big bag of white powder, and George Peppard or Karl Malden or whoever stuck his finger in the bag, right up to his knuckle, and then tasted the powder and said 'Pure horse.' Well, I just went ahead and scooped up a big handful of the powder in question, and I was all ready to say that, to say 'Pure horse,' but before I could, my mouth had got all numb and everything, and then I was thinking about how my neighbor used to have horses when I was a kid, and he used to race them, and I used to see him giving them some white powder before the races, and that got me to thinking, well, maybe it was something else. Then I remembered how these ants used to be all over the stable where he kept the horses, these really interesting little black ants, you know, and they would just all follow each other in a big long line up the wall, and I always wondered what made them do that, and then-"

Sheriff Drivel then gently interrupted his partner with a friendly, two-handed smack to the side of the head with his baton. Officer Dither reeled off, twitching spasmodically, his arms flailing and blood streaming from his nose and ear, while Sheriff Drivel continued.

"To make a long story short, we had the powder analyzed, and it turned out that it wasn't Anthrax at all. It also wasn't 'pure horse,'" he snorted, casting a glance at his still-convulsing partner. "All it turned out to be was your plain old garden-variety cocaine, so we sent these jokers on their merry way. I can tell you, we were awfully glad to find out it wasn't Anthrax, though. We hate that kind of music down here."

"I remember quite clearly the first girl I ever kissed. I was very young and inexperienced, no older than 13. No younger than 13 either. In fact, I was 13.

She was a very self-assured woman, slightly older, around 16. She wore confidence like a dress, and she wore her dress like a dress, so it was like she was wearing two dresses, but both matched her rose-colored shoes.

Her hair was long and feathery, golden, not real gold but just blonde, though calling it 'golden' makes it sound more poetic, I like to think. Her lips were fat, naturally so, not like mine that were still fat from that playground fight with the ugly kid a day before. No, her lips were beautiful, like sweet candy wax lips and you wanted to taste but not eat because that would be disgusting.

'Do you want to kiss me?' she asked. I'm no fool, so I told her I did, though I was very nervous.

I could tell she was very reluctant, wearing a shy smile and a twinkling sparkle in her eye as she tried to play all normal about it. And, kiddies, that li'l devil I was, that 13-year-old Sampson L. Hartwig, I leaned in and planted the most fantastic kiss on her lips.

'That's an extra dollar,' she reminded me, but it was worth every penny as she put her clothes back on while I watched to make sure no flatfeet cops were cruising by."

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