NOW MAUREEN DOWD PENS HER FIRST PRESS RELEASE FOR THE McCAIN CAMPAIGN

Damn, she's doing all the writing for Team McCain, isn't she? Even though she's letting other people take the credit:

...McCain campaign manager Rick Davis ... sent a memo out earlier today....

Writes Davis: "... Only celebrities like Barack Obama go to the gym three times a day, demand 'MET-RX chocolate roasted-peanut protein bars and bottles of a hard-to-find organic brew -- Black Forest Berry Honest Tea' and worry about the price of arugula."

And this line bears the mark of MoDo, wouldn't you say?

Staying very personal, the McCain campaign responds to Obama's suggestion that Republicans will attack his unusual name and his race:

"This is a typically superfluous response from Barack Obama. Like most celebrities, he reacts to fair criticism with a mix of fussiness and hysteria," says McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds....

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BY THE WAY: That "hard-to-find" Black Forest Berry Honest Tea? You can buy it at Target.

And it's distributed by a crunchy-chewy hippie-granola company known as Coca-Cola.

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(Once again: The headline is a joke. At least I think it is.)

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UPDATE: In comments, merl writes, in reference to the "gym three times a day" reference:

doesn't chickengeorge bush work out a lot? what the fuck is wrong with these idiots?

The line is just preposterous. That was reported to have happened once -- just before a trip to Iraq, a trip that was supposed to be kept secret for security reasons until just before it happened.

Think it's possible he wasn't actually exercising on all those gym trips? Think it's possible he was planning security for a trip to a place where, if too much information leaked out, he and everyone with him might die?