GEORGE W. BUSH'S ONE MOMENT OF GREAT HEROISM AND LEADERSHIP

Americans want a president who will stand up and defend them-- you know make sure there are no more 9/11's (though it would have been nice if there hadn't been a first 9/11), make sure we don't get ripped off by oil and gas companies and Enron, make sure real (instead of imaginary) enemies don't acquire nuclear weapons, make sure decent folks' marriages don't get ruined by lesbians marrying each other... all that stuff. But most of all, we Americans look at our leaders and we say, as one, "Please protect is from human-animal hybrids." We don't mean the offspring of Bill Frist and Ann Coulter either. We don't want Ann Coulter reproducing with a platypus or Bill Frist going too far in his headlong rush to repent for having spent his life as a cat murderer by personally impregnating felines whenever he has time off from insider trading. Obviously nothing can be done about Coulter's coupling with any beast that takes her fancy, but Bush is expected to have a heart to heart with "Dr." Frist. Bush made this burning controversy the centerpiece of this year's not much-anticipated State of the Union speech the other day. Straightening his shoulders aggressively and looking sternly right at Senators Frist and Coburn, Bush, in a no-uncertain tone intoned: "A hopeful society has institutions of science and medicine that do not cut ethical corners, and that recognize the matchless value of every life. Tonight I ask you to pass legislation to prohibit the most egregious abuses of medical research-- human cloning in all its form -- creating or implanting embryos for experiments, creating human-animal hybrids..." What guts! What charisma! What foresight! What a LEADER!

And the stunned congressmen reacted with deafening applause, Joe Lieberman jumping to his feet and screaming like a madman as though he was at a Yehudi Menuhin concert. Sam Brownback, known as the most spiritual of all DC salons, help up a lighter and prayed. Ever since The Night all Washington has been abuzz about Bush standing up to the powerful lobbyists and the special interests pushing so hard in the human-animal cloning arena-- not just Rick Santorum and his K Street friends but the hugely powerful and sometimes violent Dasiy Mae Hathaway, the take-no-prisoners lobbyist for Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey Circuses. People are also wondering who wrote it.