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Dave Barry's Year in Review. Barry is even-handed. Except for his treatment of Bode Miller. An excerpt:

In other political developments, Sen. Barack Obama, looking back on a career in the U.S. Senate that spans nearly 20 months, allows as how he might be ready to move on to the presidency. Obamamania sweeps the nation as millions of voters find themselves deeply impressed by Obama's views, and the fact that he was on "Oprah." In a gracious gesture from a potential 2008 rival, Sen. Hillary Clinton sends Obama a good-luck card, which is stapled to the head of a horse.

As the election approaches, polls show that the Democrats have a good chance to regain control of Congress. But then disaster strikes in the form of John "Mister Laffs" Kerry, who, addressing a college audience, attempts to tell a joke, which is like a fish attempting to play the piano. This has major repercussions in ... NOVEMBER ... when Kerry's "joke" causes widespread outrage, prompting Kerry, with typical humility, to insist that it was obviously humorous, and anybody who disagrees is an idiot. Kerry is finally subdued by Democratic strategists armed with duct tape, but not before many political analysts see a tightening of the race to control Congress.

As the campaign lumbers to the finish line, the Republicans desperately hope that the voters will not notice that they — once the party of small government — have turned into the party of war-bungling, corruption-tolerating, pork-spewing power-lusting toads, while the Democrats desperately hope that the voters will not notice that they are still, basically, the Democrats.

The first major casualty of the GOP defeat is Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who, the day after the election, is invited to go quail hunting with the vice president. He is never seen again. As Rumsfeld's replacement, the president nominates — in what is widely seen as a change in direction on Iraq — Barbra Streisand.

In other celebrity news, Michael Richards, a graduate of the Mel Gibson School of Standup, responds to a comedy-club heckler by unleashing a racist tirade so vile that even John Kerry realizes it is not funny. A chastened Richards apologizes for his behavior, citing, by way of explanation, the fact that he is a moron.