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By humorist Andy Borowitz from a year or so ago that can help divert your attention with some laughs during this contentious primary.

From Publishers Weekly:

Uber-humorist Borowitz (Borowitz Report: The Big Book of Shockers) churns out humor at a fast clip—and here is another timely example. Filled with short memos, talking points and marginal notes from its purported possessor, George W. Bush, this is the latest update of a playbook that claims to have changed very little in recent years—except that the Internet has made it easier to "spread lies and distortions." It advises candidates to scare voters with a doctored photo of a future Democratic-controlled Supreme Court featuring the Dixie Chicks, Michael Moore and Alec Baldwin. There's a devastating sketch about how the Republic Party favors a credible voting process—in Iraq—followed by a somewhat labored Bruce McCallesque set of drawings of Republican-approved voting machines. A hilarious set of photos moves six degrees from Hillary Clinton to Osama bin Laden and Kim Jong Il. A Republican-to-English glossary translates "personal responsibility" to "welfare cuts" and "My fellow Americans" to "My fellow evangelical Christians." More silly, but still amusing, is a "Democrat to French conversion chart," rendering Joseph Biden as "Giscard Boudin." Enough serious points are presented with humor—how the Republicans fool the public with black faces prominent at their conventions, for example, or where the "war on terror" breaks down—to make this book more than just a diversion.

An online review:

The Republican Playbook is HILARIOUS! Andy Borowitz ingeniously blended the past political events with razor sharp humor; it is one brilliant political satire.

You can't put a price on all the laughter you'll get out of it! It's definitely worth reading.

From another online reviewer:

One of the most popular political humor books in recent memory was America (The Book) : A Citizen's Guide to Democratic Inaction, put out by Jon Stewart and others at Comedy Central's The Daily Show. America was a political parody disguised as a civics textbook. Now comes another political parody in disguise, this time as a Republican strategy manual called The Republican Playbook. The book passes itself off as a top-secret manual misplaced by President George W. Bush (complete with "his" doodlings and commentaries within) on how to win elections and political points.

The trick in a book like this is to be over the top enough to be funny, yet just realistic enough to make it look and feel like what is being parodied. America succeeded in this, and so does The Republican Playbook. No opportunity to pick on Republicans is missed, particularly ones from the current administration-but the book offers "forewords" to "previous editions" from other Republican presidents that are equally entertaining. However, the book is seldom so overtaken with anger at the current administration that it loses its sense of humor, and maintains just the hint of plausibility needed to make a book like this work.

The book is organized into five "lessons"that concern current political issues such as Iraq. Within these lessons. among the more entertaining sections are "Official Republican Supreme Court Litmus Test","How To Drain All Spontaneity From Your Town Meetings", and "Dr. Frist's Long-Distance Diagnosis of Leading Democrats". As he does in the last of these three, Borowitz is able to take plenty of digs at the Democrats, too. The Republican Playbook is a fun, relatively quick read that is clearly targeted to liberals, but many conservatives should be able to see the humor in it, too. This is one of the more entertaining American political parodies of the past several years. I repeatedly laughed out loud reading it, and other fans of current American politics will, too.

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