From Jesus to Jack Daniels

Great satire from Salt Lake City Weekly

Divine Calling

George and his "imaginary friend" look for evil-doers.
by D. P. Sorensen

Presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer announced today that God has taken up residence in the White House. “This should lay to rest all the doubt out there about where our Lord and Savior stands on the issue of Iraq,” said the obviously elated Mr. Fleischer. “God has informed President Bush in a private meeting that He is on our side. He said that He had never taken a shine to that Saddam Hussein fellow and was glad the United States was going to quote ‘whack him’ unquote.”

When reporters tried to question Mr. Fleischer as to God’s exact whereabouts in the White House, the cagey, balding spokesman had a quick response: “Surely you must know the Creator can’t be pinned down. He is omnipresent. He’s here, there and everywhere, though He seems to have a thing about the Lincoln bedroom.”

White House insiders say First Lady Laura Bush is not happy about the Lord hanging out at the White House. She has reportedly complained to friends that the president only has eyes for the Lord, and sometimes sits for hours with a beatific expression on his face. Laura tells friends it reminds her of the days when he’d get sloshed on Jack Daniels and stare at a football game on TV. At first Laura described God as Dubya’s “invisible friend” or “imaginary playmate.” These days, according to reports, she calls him “Harvey,” after the invisible six-foot-tall rabbit in the Jimmy Stewart movie.

The First Lady on several occasions has confided to close friends that she is increasingly frustrated with her husband’s “faith-based initiatives,” which are programs run by religions rather than the federal government. After a night out with the girls in a posh Georgetown watering hole, Laura was overheard saying, “I’d like to see some faith-based initiatives in our bedroom.” Friends have encouraged Laura to get in contact with Dr. Phil, who is scheduled to do a show called “My Husband is More Interested in God Than Me.”

Highly placed sources in the White House reveal that the First Lady is not the only casualty of her husband’s infatuation with the Almighty. The president is now totally oblivious to White House staff, whom in happier times he liked to horse around with or play pranks on. Jorge Menudo, a sous chef in the White House mess, smiled as he recalled how the president used to unscrew the cap on the salt shaker, and then collapse in laughter after Vice President Cheney, whose heart condition requires a low-salt diet, would empty the entire shaker on his chicken-fried steak. On other occasions, the president would sneak into the staff dormitory and short-sheet a few beds, or fill assorted shoes with Colgate shaving cream. By all accounts, the president’s favorite prank was sneaking up on the French ambassador and giving him a wedgie.

According to Mr. Menudo, those care-free days are no more. “President Bush fired my friend Arnie, who has been the White House barber for 30 years. He called Arnie an evil-doer after he took a little too much off the sides. And after Mr. Bush almost choked to death on that pretzel, the poor waiter was whisked off to an undisclosed location by the CIA.”

These days, instead of horsing around with the White House staff, Mr. Bush takes long walks on the South Lawn with the Creator of the Universe. On rare occasions, Bush and “Harvey” (the Secret Service has adopted the First Lady’s mocking moniker as the code word for the Lord) will head out to the local mall, where the president likes to try on baseball caps and look for evil-doers on the escalator.

When the president appears on public occasions, observers have noticed that he now wears a tiny earpiece. There is speculation that God is telling Mr. Bush what to say, using a celestial wavelength almost impossible for evil-doers to intercept. Some observers think the divine prompting via the earpiece explains the president’s propensity for verbal gaffes, such as his comment in February of 2000 that “there is madmen in the world, and there are terror.”

In an exclusive interview, the First Lady told City Weekly she longs for the days when George preferred Jack Daniels to Jesus. “I wish he’d go back to booze. He used to get drunk and pick a fight. Now he’s got religion and wants to start a war.”