Two dispatches from Bizarro America:

Bush campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said. ''The American people are already hopeful and optimistic" in response to John Edwards' convention speech.

Sure, if "hopeful" means "terrified" and being optimistic involves purchasing deadbolts and books with titles like "Deliver Us From Evil" for the long days of cowering.

Can't quite hold a candle to the 'party-like-it's-2000' weirdness from March though.

Campaigning in upstate New York during the Republican primaries in March 2004, Bush told voters: ''You can help begin the end of the Clinton era in Washington, D.C."

Yes, Virginia. The last 3 years was all just a bad dream and Bush wasn't running the country [into the ground]. Bill Clinton is still the POTUS, and the nightmarish era of international respect, police-action-only military deployments and economic boom driven by technological and social innovation is still on. That strangely unaccomplished candidate from the family that runs Texas is telling America to kick the incumbent out of office and dismantle his legacy—

Oh.