“Frank Sinatra saved my life,” begins an old joke. “I’m in Vegas and six goons are beating the crap out of me in the Sands parking lot. I am about to lose consciousness when out of nowhere Sinatra comes up and says, ‘Okay, boys, that’s enough.’” So it is today for John Kerry. For weeks now, Swift Boat ads criticizing his war record have crippled the Senator’s approval rating among veterans. With the damage done, President Bush finally declared, “I think Senator Kerry served admirably and he ought to be proud of his record.” W. also called for removing all 527-funded commercials from the airwaves. Given that the Commander-in-Chief has cut veterans’ benefits by $1.5 billion, supports a reduction in active duty pay, and remains in violation of Article 85 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, it seems odd that he stacks up favorably against a guy with shrapnel in his leg.

All throughout the ambush, the President maintained that his campaign had no direct ties to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. But just this week two members of the Bush campaign were forced to resign because they worked for SBVT: Retired Air Force Col. Ken Cordier actually appeared in the Swift Boat commercial while election lawyer Benjamin Ginsberg served as legal counsel to the fringe group. Forgetting the details, anyone who couldn’t recognize the whole thing was a pack of lies deserves to have their son shipped to Iraq and dumped in a body bag: Like Kerry, antagonist Larry Thurlow, who claims an absence of hostile gunfire on the day in question, received a Bronze Star for sustaining “enemy small arms and automatic weapons fire” directed at “all units” during his patrol. Another vet, George Elliott, has recanted an affidavit condemning Kerry’s actions, telling The Boston Globe he’d made “a terrible mistake.”

Still craving the spotlight, Bob Dole joined the act, carping that the Democratic challenger had won “three Purple Hearts and never bled that I know of. I mean they’re all superficial wounds.” Dole backed down when his own military heroics came under question. First, Mel Gibson’s father, Hutton, repeated his claim that World War II never happened. Then the Survivors of D-Day, a rival group of ex-soldiers, threatened to reveal that Dole’s withered right arm did not result from charging a Nazi machine gun nest in Italy, as was previously claimed. Rather, they intimate, the injury resulted while fisting then FBI director J. Edgar Hoover. Apparently, Hoover received a surprise social call from Roy Cohn while Dole was “elbow-in” and the Kansan, according to a suppressed police report, sustained brachial nerve damage in the ensuing melee.

It is well anticipated that the November election will more resemble a prison riot than an orchestrated act of civil obedience. The Kerry camp has already assembled legal teams in all 50 states and international observers will be on hand to monitor the carnage. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe is sending a team to document the difference between American election fraud and the varieties practiced by fledgling Third-World nations.

Their first stop will no doubt be Florida, where Secretary of State Glenda Hood failed in her attempt to replicate Katherine Harris’ purging of the voter rolls. This time around, media outlets successfully obtained the list of targeted voters via lawsuit and showed how Republican-voting Hispanics were omitted while Democratic-leaning African-Americans disproportionately populated the roster. Hood still stands by electronic voting machines despite a plethora of complaints. Even members of her own party urged GOP voters to instead use absentee ballots because of overwhelming problems. A power surge made the wrong ballot appear on half of San Diego County’s touchscreens, while in one New Mexico district, a turnout of 48,000 only produced 36,000 votes. Exacerbating the mayhem is the lack of any paper trail generated by these electronic systems.

The Help America Vote Act of 2002 tries to alleviate some of the problems experienced four years ago by mandating use of provisional ballots. Now, anyone claiming to be eligible to vote but is not listed will be given a punch card ballot to be hand counted upon further verification. But states apply the rules differently. In California, your vote counts even if you are in the wrong precinct. In Florida an Illinois, your ballot would be invalidated. Almost uniformly election officials across the country say tallying the provisional ballots in a timely fashion will be practically impossible. With so much uncertainty, one thing is sure: No matter who is declared the winner in November, the final result will send nearly half the polity into diaphoretic seizures. Kind of like the ones Bob Dole gets when Libby brings out the Crisco.