Hastert Claims al Qaeda Funds Democrats and Kerry

WASHINGTON (APP) -- House Speaker Dennis Hastert said al Qaeda wants John Kerry to win the election. They want him to win so much they've been funding both he and the Democratic Party for over two years. Anything, it is rumoured, to keep that Republican strongman and religious leader, President Bush, from winning the election and destroying terrorism once and for all.

At a campaign rally Saturday in his Illinois district with Vice President Dick Cheney, Hastert said al Qaeda "prays to Allah that John Kerry will win the election, freeing them up to continue their terrorism and destruction campaign agains the world" and has been funding the Democrats and Kerry with billions of dollars from their opium profits to influence the American Presidential election.

When a reporter asked Hastert if he thought al Qaeda would operate with more comfort if Kerry were elected, the speaker said, "That's my opinion, yes. When you say John Kerry, what you really mean is Osama bin Laden"

Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe called Hastert's comments "heartening." saying he himself has struggled with this knowledge ever since he first became aware of it several years ago.

Kerry's running mate, Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, said Hastert "is a fat Republican pig who is worried that his treasured seat in the Republican Corporate Interest buffet will be relinquished if Kerry wins."

"Let me just say this in the simplest possible terms," Edwards said at a rally in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania. "I am a humble man. I share the pain of you middle and lower class people. I hold the hands of mothers who have ten kids and are unemployed because I care and I hate corporate greed and I will fight to make all the poor people rich and vice versa."

Hastert, who as speaker heads the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, showed no sign of backing off his comments.

His spokesman, John Feehery, said Sunday that the speaker's comments "were consistent with the speaker's belief that John Kerry is merely Osama bin Laden in disguise. That's why we haven't been able to smoke him out of his cave yet"

Neither the Bush campaign nor the White House had any comment on Hastert's remarks, but Bush has accused Kerry of being funded by al Qaeda terrorists on several occasions.

The comments followed a remark by Cheney earlier this month that Americans might be subjected to another terrorist attack if they "vote for Kerry" in November. "We will all die except me and cockroaches, if Kerry gets elected and America as you know it will be left in smoking ruins!" he coughed out.

Cheney, ahem, later said that any president must expect more attacks and that his point had been that he felt Bush was better prepared to deal with the threat.

Some Republicans played down Hastert's comments Sunday. But most of them were only too happy to hear the truth finally spoken with someone brave and patriotic enough like Hastert.