Why President Bush is more popular than John Kennedy

I was feeling a little bit depressed but I'm okay now. The other day I was working here at the White House late. It must have been 5:15. Generally, President Bush prefers a 9 to 5 day but sometimes circumstances just require folks to work a little longer.

Anyway, I was shredding documents for Vice President Cheney when I walked past the Oval Office. The door was slightly ajar and I could hear what I thought was sniffling coming from inside the office. Since it was after 5 o'clock, I was pretty sure it couldn't be President Bush. But in fact, when I peaked past the open door, it was President Bush weeping on the shoulder of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

"I jest don't understand," President Bush said tearily. "How can I be less popular than that pervert Bill Clinton? It don't make no sense." He wiped his nose on Ms. Rice's sleeve.

"There's no accounting for popularity, Mr. President," Ms. Rice said. "Look how long Will & Grace has been on TV."

"Don't tell nobody," President Bush said looking up from her shoulder, "but I kinda like that program."

Then the President went on. "I can understand Democrats not liking me on account of I got God on my side and He's a mighty powerful voter. But now, I'm losing respect from Republicans, folks who used to worship the saddles I sat on. How could things turn around so quickly?"

"It hasn't been so quick," Ms. Rice pointed out. "You've been in power five years. That's way more than your Daddy. It's way more than John Kennedy."

"But he was assassinated," the President said.

"Now that's what you call unpopular," Ms. Rice said.

"Yeah," the President said starting to feel a little better. "I guess getting assassinated is the ultimate in unpopularity polls. Heck, even Ronald Reagan had an attempt."

The President stood up and started walking around the Oval Office. "Maybe I ain't so unpopular after all."

"Absolutely," Ms. Rice said. "I bet you could walk through downtown Dallas any time you like without getting shot. Just don't go hunting with Dick."

The President giggled. "You always know how to make me feel better. Well, I guess I better get over to the residence. Judge Judy will be on soon."

I headed over to the shredder.

I'm proud to be a "South Dakota" Republican

Although I'm a Texan, true and tall, today I am also pleased to be considered a "South Dakota" Republican — that is, a Republican who is against all abortions (with a few minor exceptions).

Last week, the Republicans of South Dakota made it against the law for any woman to have an abortion for any reason except if she's cowardly enough to want to save her own life over that of the unborn baby. It's hard to imagine any woman would accept that offer but I suppose a Democrat might.

What is wonderful about the law is it doesn't pander to those folks who believe that a baby conceived in rape or incest should be aborted. Republicans can feel proud to stand up for our principles.

"South Dakota" Republicans, like President Bush, understand that babies are the work of the Lord, not rapists and folks who practise incest. (Although I do believe a woman raped by a man of another race should be allowed a fetal termination, for instance, a black woman raped by a white man would not want to have a child of which God would obviously not condone, what with mixed race children being in the same league as same-sex married couples.)

I realize that incest is against the law (although that didn't seem to stop the Roosevelts), but the Bible doesn't say you can punish the baby for the sins of the father. If every baby born through incest was ever aborted, heck, there'd hardly be any population in Texas never mind Alabama and Arkansas.

Anyway, I understand that the South Dakota anti-abortion law will eventually be challenged at the Supreme Court where Samuel Alito is already writing the decision to overturn Roe vs. Wade — at least, that better be what he's doing if he knows what's good for him.

Get your program...you can't tell the Arabs without a program

I reckon by now you've heard that the Dubai Ports deal fell through. President Bush was deeply embarrassed among his many Arab friends. Although I always thought that in the War on Terrorism, Arabs were not our first choice of ally, it turns out that all Arabs are not the same.

For instance, according to President Bush, the United Arab Emirates are folks we can trust. Although the U.A.E. provided banking services to al Qaeda for the purposes of the 9/11 attacks, it turns out that that was strictly business and those particular Arabs don't hate Americans personally like let's say Iranians (who are actually not Arabs but Persians, as though that makes a difference).

Then there's Saudi Arabia. According to President Bush, the 15 Saudi hijackers who flew jets into the World Trade Center and Pentagon were actually aberrations. As the President said, "You don't want to tar an entire nation just because of a few bad seeds." So Saudi Arabia remains among America's truest friends.

Iraq, on the other hand, had long had bad thoughts about the United States. Those Iraqis like Saddam Hussein were always saying war-like things. Although no Iraqi participated in the 9/11 incident, American intelligence learned that many Iraqis wished that they had. What else could America do but attack Iraq — a known potential enemy.

Anyway, President Bush has been feeling awfully bad about the way the United States Congress including Republicans treated our friendly Arabs. And he doesn't want to see that it happen again.

So the President has hired a major public relations company, Hally Burton & Associates, to develop a directory or "program" that will differentiate for Americans the Arabs we like and those we don't.

The program will list Arabs by country, region, town and religion making it easy for Americans to know who to go into business with and who not.

For instance, we now like Shiites living north of Baghdad but we don't like Shiites living in Iran unless they are students attending specific universities in Tehran.

Basically, we don't like any Palestinians but if we have to deal with them, we'll only talk to Fatah and not Hamas.

We don't like anyone in Syria but like most Arabs in Jordan unless they are related to some fellow named Zarqawi.

Anyway, there are about 170 million Arabs in the Middle East and by the time the directory is completed, we should know how every single one of them stands on whether they like Americans or not.