Bush and Kerry to face Bono (Pub-friendly) [The Rockall Times]

Bono: Roving rock pundit Roving rock pundit Bono will join the next debate between US prez George Bush and Senator John Kerry, we can exclusively reveal. The move comes at the behest of TV news channels who expressed their disappointment at the first clash between the two rivals which polls later showed had resulted in a 23 per cent swing towards catatonia among the American public.

Kerry and Bush battled it out for a gruelling 90 minutes during which they both insisted that they were better qualified to stop ragheads crashing airliners into tall buildings. When asked: "Do you believe that you could do a better job than President Bush in preventing another 9/11-style terrorist attack on the United States?" Kerry instantly replied: "Yes, I do."

A visibly-flustered Bush battled to counter this savage assault, and by the time he parried the blow with an analysis of his success to date in Iraq, 46m Americans had changed channels to watch an entertaining advert involving a small dog and a can of aerosol whipped cream. A spokesman for CBS told The Rockall Times: "These guys are going to kill this election. We need help, godammit, and we need it now."

Accordingly, Bono is on immediate standby to fly in for the next head-to-head. If the electronic ratings-o-meter falls below seven, Bono will immediately intervene by taking both Bush and Kerry to task over their complete lack of commitment to Africa. Any reading below five, and the jet-setting Irishman will be joined on the podium by Sting who will entertain the crowds by bashing out a protest number on the guitar while surrounded by Amazonian indians, after which Kerry and Bush will be invited to reply on the instrument of their choice.

And, in the highly unlikely event that the US public continues to abandon the scintillating debate even after Anglo-Irish rock intervention, then networks may deploy what they chillingly refer to as the "Doomsday Scenario Option" — thought to involve pulling the plug on the whole thing and running a repeat of I Love Lucy.

In the meantime, NBC has asked us to remind our US readers that Bono is not a presidential candidate and that they should not vote for him even if he appears on the screen with Kerry and Bush. "We'll be running a caption under Bow-now stating clearly 'This Man Is Not A Presidential Candidate. Do Not Vote For Him'," confirmed a senior network producer. "It's mainly for the benefit of the Florida Cubans. They'll vote for anything in sunglasses."

However, senior White House aides are rumoured to have insisted on the warning after watching Bono's performance at last week's Labour Party conference. "Jeez the guy's good," gasped one visibly-amazed lackey. "Who writes his shit, anyway? That stuff about Lennon and McCartney was pure gold-dust. They're the guys who run some place called Africa, right?"

Bush and Kerry to face Bono

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