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• Mr. Borowitz' official site
• Excerpt from The Republican Playbook
• Mr. Borowitz on Weekend Edition
• Mr. Borowitz' bio
• Excerpt from The Borowitz Report

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Tavis: Andy Borowitz is a popular humorist and author who was honored by the National Press Club at their first-ever humor award. In a past life, he was also one of the creators of the hit sitcom, "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air." His most recent book just in time for the midterm election is called "The Republican Playbook." Andy, nice to have you back on the program.

Andy Borowitz: Great to be here, Tavis.

Tavis: So are you getting like fat checks every time I turn the television on? Because every time I turn it on, I see "Fresh Prince" playing somewhere.

Borowitz: You know, given those checks, you would think I'd be dressed better. It's not happening. I always feel so under-dressed when I come here. No one's as dapper as you are.

Tavis: (Laughter) That's where I was going. I was like, you know what? If you get checks every night, Andy, I know you can do better. I like the shoes, though. The shoes are nice.

Borowitz: Thank you, thank you.

Tavis: It's been two years since you've been here. What you been doing? What do you have to show for yourself the last few years?

Borowitz: Well, mainly this new book. You know, I've been a fake journalist, as you know, for a long time with "The Borowitz Report." We did these fake news stories every day. I felt that was getting a little played out, so I thought I would sort of branch out into fake investigative journalism and that's what this book, "The Republican Playbook" is all about. This is a book that I stole directly from the White House, from the Oval Office.

Tavis: As a matter of fact, I love the little sticky on the back of the book that you cannot read on this television screen, but you can see the little yellow sticky on the back of the book and the sticky says, "Note to self. This book contains all of our dirtiest tricks. If it ever gets out, we're toast. Make sure it doesn't fall out of a pocket while on bike" and it's signed by George W. Bush.

Borowitz: George W. Bush.

Tavis: George W. Bush (laughter).

Borowitz: This is the only book he's ever read. You know, it's a very big deal.

Tavis: (Laughter) Hey, he said he read sixty books over the summer. Didn't he say that?

Borowitz: Oh, I know.

Tavis: What did you make of that? Sixty books, man.

Borowitz: You know, he's made a lot of claims that have turned out not to be true the last few years. But this book, we know it's his because it's got all these great doodles that he's done. If there's a really long word, he circles it and he writes "means?" You know this is George Bush's book.

Tavis: (Laughter) The best part of this is the doodles. There's a doodle here in the margin that President Bush writes, "Ask NSA how much money to wiretap every Democrat in the country."

Borowitz: That's right. He usually will say "Ask Mr. Cheney if legal." Things like that. The doodles sort of look like, you know, a fourteen year old boy in homeroom might have done that.

Tavis: It's very funny stuff. There's so much stuff in here that it's hard to know what to start with. I actually pull out my blue card that I never use.

Borowitz: Please, go to the blue card.

Tavis: I never use a blue card, but let me use one tonight because there's so much stuff that I don't know where to start. "The Democratic Party and Why It's Bad." They've got ways to spin it.

Borowitz: Right. Well, they break down the word "Democrat." First of all, they never say the Democratic Party.

Tavis: The Democrats. Newt Gingrich stuff.

Borowitz: Yeah, they started that. They started the Democrat Party. They explained that the word Democrat comes from the Greek word "demos" meaning demonic and "cratos" meaning creature. So Democrats are demonic creatures and they explain that very clearly. They really break down everything at a talking point which any Republican office holder or office seeker can use.

Tavis: It's amazing what you learn in this book, "The Republican Playbook," about the way they want to spin the notion of intelligent design.

Borowitz: That's right. They make it very clear that intelligent design is a totally made-up thing. Well, no, intelligent design is what they believe in. They contrast it with the Democratic view. They say that the Republican Party is the party of intelligent designer and the Democratic Party is the party of the interior designer. They make that very clear. They make these distinctions.

Tavis: Scare tactics like social security?

Borowitz: Yeah, they say social security is bankrupt and they say the only solution to that is everybody has to invest their money in Vice President Dick Cheney, which I kind of agree with. Dick Cheney does well in good times or bad. They have a lot of scare tactics. I think my favorite scare tactic in the book, which I think is very credible, is this thing they do about what a Democratic Supreme Court would look like. They have a picture of them. It's a Supreme Court that has people like Sean Penn as a Supreme Court Justice, Michael Moore, Alec Baldwin, Barbra Streisand and all three Dixie Chicks. It's a frightening image.

Tavis: Speaking of Howard Dean, they've got a lot of favorite targets and two of their favorite targets you just mentioned now. We'll take them one at a time. Howard Dean and then Michael Moore.

Borowitz: Right. Well, Howard Dean - I mean, the tone of the book is gleeful because they go on and on about how easy it is to beat the Democrats and they basically said that, you know, the day that the Democrats named Howard Dean as their chairman, they basically just got down on their knees and thanked God because they just thought that Howard Dean would be the gift that keeps on giving.

He kind of is, in a way. He's kind of a human gaff machine. He does help them out a lot. They talk about ways to use Howard Dean. I mean, basically their goal is to make Howard Dean mad and they have tactics like simply just putting a tack under his chair and things like that just to get him to pop up and scream and stuff like that.

Tavis: Speaking of popping up, they're so concerned according to the book about Michael Moore's health. He's getting too big.

Borowitz: Right. That's the thing. They really are worried about him gaining too much weight because they want to keep Michael Moore around. Michael Moore is sort of one of those great lightning rods. In a Republican fundraiser letter, though, I'd say that no matter who the congressman is, they'll say that that congressman is a part of the Michael Moore wing of the Democrat Party. I mean, it's always like the Michael Moore. It doesn't matter what you do. They want to keep him alive. They want to make sure that his health doesn't deteriorate too much.

Tavis: There are lessons to be learned from the George W. Bush Leadership Series. Let me take the first lesson Iraq, lesson number one.

Borowitz: Well, you know, he talks a lot about the exit strategy. You know, they have this exit strategy from Iraq, which is that George Bush - this is going to be in October -

Tavis: - by the way, that was news to me that there was an exit strategy.

Borowitz: Well, now we know. It's news because this is an October surprise. It's October, so I can kind of wreck it now.

Tavis: (Laughter) Put it out there, yeah.

Borowitz: George Bush plans to withdraw all the troops from Iraq through Iran, so that's what he's going to do. That's the plan. That's the exit strategy.

Tavis: (Laughter) Iraq, Iran and maybe back home.

Borowitz: Right. It's not the most direct route, but they're all going through Iran, maybe with a stopover in North Korea.

Tavis: (Laughter) Okay, and disaster preparedness is another lesson in the George Bush Leadership Series. After Hurricane Katrina, we must have a disaster preparedness plan.

Borowitz: Yeah. His plan is that he intends to plan the next catastrophe. That's what he's going to do. He's wanting to have a Secretary of Catastrophes in the Cabinet.

Tavis: Going to plan it right from the White House.

Borowitz: He is going to plan the next catastrophe. He says it will be a catastrophic success. That is his view.

Tavis: Keys to Victory. Hey, it's that time. You got to start thinking of this as state by state and figure out how you're going to win. They have a plan that they - let's talk about the Minnesota plan.

Borowitz: Well, Minnesota is a very important state for the Republicans because Minnesota has produced more incredible losers for the Democratic Party, losing candidates. You know, Humphrey, but also Walter Mondale. You know, if there's ever like a landslide where, you know, they only carry, say, District of Columbia and Minnesota, that means that, you know, the Republican plans have worked out well.

So their focus is on who the next rising star in Minnesota is going to be. For them, it's good news because it appears to be Al Franken. So they're really hoping that we have a Senator Al Franken and then hopefully a presidential nominee Al Franken because then you're going to wind up with the same kind of, you know, Minnesota-D.C. electoral turnout.

Tavis: Well, speaking of Democrats and the White House, I was anxious to get to the book immediately because I knew there had to be a chapter in here on how to stop Hillary. Talking state by state, how do you stop Hillary in New York right now? It's a fascinating plan.

Borowitz: Well, they talk a lot about Hillary. I mean, the basic argument the Republicans are going to make is that Hillary is not really experienced enough to be president. Their argument is going to be that, you know, when her husband was in the White House, he kept the Oval Office door locked pretty much at all times, so she was never in there. So I think that's going to be their biggest argument.

But I think that she's clearly going to run. There was a poll I think was in "Newsweek" about a week ago that said fifty percent of Democrats want Hillary to be the next nominee for the Democratic Party and a hundred percent of Republicans want her to be. So I think she's in. I think she's in.

Tavis: (Laughter) All right. There's a list in your book which is really cool. I really learned a lot about their strategy.

Borowitz: Well, I'm glad. This is very educational for all of us.

Tavis: It is indeed. They have other things to do like how to create the fog of war. They have like a standing to-do list. One of the things on the list is how to create the fog of war.

Borowitz: Well, you know, it's so important to create this confusion about the war because they figure if people really don't know what's going on, then the news won't seem so bad. I think one of the key things that they say is nobody in America knows the difference between the Shiites and the Sunnis, so use terms like Shiites and Sunnis as much as possible. That'll confuse people. And just in general, the names in Iraq are confusing. Just use as many of these names as possible. Then also, whenever possible, have Donald Rumsfeld just talk because that automatically makes their head hurt. It's a good thing.

Tavis: (Laughter) It confuses you. Got to create that fog of war.

Borowitz: The fog of war.

Tavis: Every party wants to scapegoat somebody. Fascinating read in this text about who they want to scapegoat this year.

Borowitz: Right. Well, illegal immigrants. I mean, they are getting a lot of the scapegoating. I really think that that's going to be their strategy for getting out of this whole Foley mess.

Tavis: How so?

Borowitz: From studying this book. I think they're going to come out and say, look, the issue here is not Congressman Foley's behavior. The issue here is illegal immigration. Were those congressional pages in our country legally? Really, that's the question because, if there had been a fence built around Congressman Foley, none of this would have happened, so I think that's the key.

Tavis: (Laughter) One of those things that got my attention on this to-do list was when in doubt, cut taxes.

Borowitz: That's right. Cut taxes. It's a crowd-pleaser. People love it. I mean, I read an article actually in "The Borowitz Report" that was apropos that President Bush is always announcing tax cuts. The headline was "0001 Wealthiest Americans Approve of Bush's Tax Plan" and I think that's a good thing. I think that, to the extent that he can appeal to his base, cutting taxes is always the way to go.

Tavis: I don't have time to get to all the good stuff in this book, but there's a particular piece here that I love in their "Playbook." How to breeze through confirmation hearings for the United States Supreme Court while practically saying nothing at all. And Bush has a crib note he wrote to himself in his book.

Borowitz: What did he write?

Tavis: "That was awesome." (Laughter) That says it all.

Borowitz: The book is such a window into his brain, an open window. It really is.

Tavis: Real small book, but a nice book, nice book. "The Republican Playbook" stolen from the White House by Andy Borowitz and we thank Andy for bringing us this book. I was going to ask you how you got this, but I guess you can't reveal that?

Borowitz: I can tell you.

Tavis: Can you tell me?

Borowitz: Just briefly. I went into the White House. I got to the Oval Office, saw it right on his desk and I took it and I put in my pocket. The question people ask me is, how did I manage to do this without getting caught? I went in August.

Tavis: (Laughter) That's our show for tonight. You can catch me on the weekends on PRI, Public Radio International. Check your local listings. I'll see you back here next time, though, on PBS. Until then, good night from Los Angeles. Thanks for watching and, as always, keep the faith.