Play ball! In the classiest act of his sorry life, Chimpy the Prez gets the Washington Nationals off to a flying start by chimpcotting opening day

In the bottom of the 6th inning, Mets' catcher Paul Lo Duca (who two innings earlier delivered a clutch two-out, full-count bases-loaded single, and later added a third RBI) put the tag on the Cardinals' David Eckstein, gunned down at the plate by a laserlike throw from CF Carlos Beltran, as the New Yorkers kicked ass, 6-1, in last night's baseball-season opener in St. Louis.

When it comes to George W. Bush (seen here discussing the upcoming attorney-general vacancy with a prominent Philadelphian, possibly someone recommended by Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter), it's always hard to know what to believe, since his is a life built on and of lies. But we've always been told that the one job the shithead really wanted was commissioner of Major League Baseball. According to the general reports, it's now-Commissioner Bud Selig who said, when he was serving as acting commissioner, "Over my dead body," or words to that effect. If it's true, this would have to rank as "Clueless Bud"'s finest moment.

Of course the world might have been spared untold misery if Tiny George had been fobbed off on baseball. On the other hand, the MLB owners got a chance to see the real Chimpy in the years when he figureheaded the Texas Rangers into oblivion, and while you could hardly ask for a scummier bunch of overprivileged white men, still, they know a smelly turd when they good-ol'-boy-ify with it.

Well. the boy wonder of evil has shown some genuine regard for the game he has so long professed to love: After befouling the Washington Nationals' first home opener, in 2005 (left), he took a pass last year, and this afternoon he's once again withholding his pestilential carcass from the Nats' opening day.

Better still, Vice President "I'm Such a Dick" Cheney, who filled in for His Chimpiness last year, is off in Alabama or someplace this year doing whatever the hell the Prince of Evil would be doing in a place like Alabama.

You'd like to think that the Evil Boys know better than to appear in public--that is to say, before any group that hasn't been thoroughly vetted by Karl Rove's security forces for fealty to their regime. But man, would that have been something: to have Chimpy show his face at RFK Stadium and be greeted with a chorus of boos. (For the record, Bush spokesflack Emily Lawrimore, asked if the boss might perhaps be dodging potential boobirds, said, "No, certainly not.")