THE PRESIDENT: Good morning, and thank you for coming. Today I was -- I am pleased to be tasked with the duty of bestowing a long-overdue honorization upon one of our nation's greatest heroes: America's 37th president - Richard Milhous Nixon.

Nearly three decades ago, his courage and defiance while being unjustly smeared by a liberal cabal of abortionists, Jews, and free-love hippies showed an emerging generation of well-shorn, affluent white males like myself how glorious it is to be immune from prosecution. And today, though Richard Nixon may be little more than six gold-capped molars and a femur bone quietly decaying in a semi-collapsed rosewood coffin, it is nevertheless my great privilege to recognize his extraordinary sacrifices by awarding him the Presidential Blue Ribbon of Integrity. (Applause.)

President Nixon positively oozed integrity from every pore on his naturally jowelly, oversized face. Raised in the small town of Whittier, California, he pledged to appear to defend the law while still young, joining a local law firm in his mid-20's. One of his early partners recalled recently that young Richard was the kind of lawyer you only had to work with for a few weeks before you felt like you'd been wrapped up together for years in a wild orgy of ultra-conservative litigiousness. He was just that kind of guy. Serving as a municipal prosecutor, Richard made an integritous name for himself as a no-nonsense law and order civil servant, imprisoning hundreds of uppity coloreds in his tireless quest to maintain the social status quo.

In the early 1940's, he was accepted into the Navy, where he spent the duration of World War II stationed aboard a mighty aircraft carrier. Not surprisingly, Nixon proved himself a real sailor's sailor -- a competent swimmer who lived and breathed the code of semaphore, Dramamine, and hushed below-decks cuddlings. One of Nixon's superiors said that the term "conniving little picture of integrity" fit him perfectly. Others remember his uncanny ability to both hold a grudge and operate a sophisticated tape recorder simultaneously.

As his wife Pat once recalled, "For Dick, integrity meant doing whatever he knew was best for America - no matter what. If he thought he could get away with it, he would go balls to the wall." (Laughter.) "And if he thought he'd get caught, he became like a rabid, wild-eyed coyote caught in a bear trap, ready and willing to gnaw off his own leg or tear the throat out of a newborn child if that's what it took to preserve his integrity." (Applause.)

When Richard completed his tour of duty, he dove headfirst into politics, quickly winning a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives and going on to serve as a U.S. Senator, Vice President under Eisenhower, then winning the office of president himself in the fall of 1968. And then did Americans rejoice, not unlike they would do thirty-two years later, content in the knowledge that they had elected a good man, a Christian man, and an honest man. For over five years, America basked in the glory of Richard Nixon's brilliance, integrity, and fabulously unique hairline.

Sadly, Democrat-controlled congresses must bring all good things to an end. And so, after enduring nearly two years of a sickeningly partisan and groundless witch hunt into a variety of non-blowjob-oriented crimes, Richard Nixon selflessly and integritously resigned his office. In his too-short term of office, he traveled to exotic China to bring the hope and the joy of Jesus Christ to its buck-toothed Buddha boys. He abolished the draft (too late for me to escape National Guard duty in the sand jungles of Texas - but I still appreciated the gesture) and presided over the first landing of men on the moon, which was NOT John Kennedy's idea. In his defiance and later his death, Richard Nixon set an example that changed the lives of his fellow Americans who weren't too high on LSD to recognize his brilliance. His story (and his audio tapes) echoes across the decades, reminding us of the high price of politics, and of the white-hot passion that caused one good man to pay that price in full.

This Thursday, August 8th, will mark the 28th anniversary of Richard Nixon's resignation. So today, we award Dick -- Tricky Dick -- the first Presidential Blue Ribbon of Integrity given a disgraced Republican official for allegedly criminal actions taken in our party's never-ending quest to ensure a right-wing Supreme Court. We thank his family for so great a sacrifice. And we commit our country to always remember what Dick gave -- to his fellow pardoned felons, to the people of America, and to the cause of conservatism.

Now, Major, please read the citation.

(The citation is read, and the ribbon is presented.) (Applause.)

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