Fair enough. But given Kirkwarden's relationship with the President, can the American people be confident that the investigation of Warm 'n' Cuddly is sufficiently vigorous? "O.K., fine, so I'm the President's pregnant mistress," she responds. "Big deal. What is this, the 1990s?" Kirkwarden throws open her exquisite Alexander McQueen jacket, exposing her rounded midriff. "I'm keeping my baby no matter what you say. Remember, I could buy and sell you without opening my wallet, you pathetic little gossip hound."

As for President Stafford, he continues to maintain a calm above-the-fray attitude toward the whole donnybrook, but it's hard to believe that America's charismatic chief executive

can recuse himself much longer — especially given Attorney General Daniel "Thundershock" Yates' interest in the case. Yet another in America's long dynasty of wrestler-politicians, Yates has become a one-man investigative tag team bent on uncovering the truth about Warm 'n' Cuddly's dubious business practices. And he's never one to miss a camera cue.

"ARE YOU READY FOR ME, KIRKWARDEN?" he bellowed at a recent press conference on the steps of the Justice Department. "DO YOU WANT A TASTE OF WHAT I'VE GOT COOKIN'? IT WON'T GO DOWN EASY!"

Turning away from the microphones, Yates is more soft-spoken. "It's bad enough that Singing Frog can track a whiff of your private DNA down five miles of cast-iron pipe.

Warm 'n' Cuddly's got an army of oozing pocket Big Brothers that can slither right up out of the can and sit on the bathroom floor blinking at you. That kind of technology is well beyond our nation's already sufficiently relaxed privacy standards." Turning back to the microphones, he added, "AND THAT'S NOT A THREAT, KIRKWARDEN! THAT'S A PROMISE!"

Although the warm 'n' cuddly investigation is hot and heavy, the company's rivals at Singing Frog are far from off the hook. Though the precise capabilities of its Mass Urinalysis technology are not public knowledge, analysts agree that engineers at Singing Frog may well be capable of picking a single person's dna traces out of a city sewer and gathering detailed biochemical data on that individual. An invasion of privacy on that scale brings back bad memories of the Wal-Amazon antitrust hearings of the early 2010s.

Complicating matters are the bizarre psychopharmaceutical antics of Singing Frog founder Bartholomew Farabee. Several months ago, the reclusive Farabee began exhibiting increasingly eccentric behavior, culminating in the now infamous Louie, Louie incident on Live with Regis and SimKathieLee. The first shocking accusations — that Farabee had somehow been neurally poisoned by operatives from Warm 'n' Cuddly — have been dismissed. Instead, Singing Frog's embarrassed board of directors has been forced to admit that their ceo has been abusing amnesiacs for years — and in questionable circumstances.

"God knows, I'm not one to be judgmental about a healthy man's sexual needs," drawls Kirkwarden, "but when I heard that Bart Farabee was picking up cheap call girls, carrying on like a goat on Viagra and then eating these illegal pills so he would literally forget what he'd just done, I had to ask the American people: Who is this man? Why is he running a multiquadrillion-dollar Fortune 500 enterprise? Is this the kind of person we can trust with our sewage?" And yet, thanks to Farabee's bad habits, Singing Frog is legally almost invulnerable. When questioned by Justice Department lawyers, Farabee protests that he simply cannot remember anything at all beyond his junior year at M.I.T., and his physical inability to testify is a serious stumbling block for federal investigators.

Public policy experts are just about ready to throw up their hands at the whole mess. I met with Professor Dennis Miller, America's senior soundbyte statesman, in his book-lined studio at Columbia University. "I gave up counting the ironies six months ago," said Miller. "No sane person minded that this foxy upscale chick was doing the President. To judge by the look on the President's face, he obviously needed some action. But now, just six months later, Pam's both knocked up and indicted five ways from Sunday. The whole city of Atlanta wants her hung from the yardarm for privacy violations. What the hell have we gotten ourselves into here? Can't this wacky Georgia peach just climb back onto her broomstick?"

Chris Rock, former Republican mayor of Washington, D.C., and currently Distinguished Professor of International Affairs at Howard University, could only shake his head. "I told you so! As a conservative, I have no use for President Stafford, but that guy is a political genius. For years he's used his zany personal life to grab the headlines and turn attention away from his policies. Now his billionaire golf buddies from Warm 'n' Cuddly have created a major scandal. So check it out: he uses his rich-creep girlfriend to jam the country's head straight down the bidet! It's time America woke up and confronted the critical issues."

Where will it end? Have Warm 'n' Cuddly JellyBots really been pilfering from Singing Frog's offices? Have they been peeking in your medicine cabinet? Will Bart Farabee recover his memory? Will Attorney General Yates emerge victorious in this prosecutorial steel-cage death match? One thing is clear: Sewergate is far from over, and it's unlikely that anybody's going to come out of it smelling like roses.