THE PRESIDENT: Today brings historic news that will for some reason sadden certain Americans. Ronald Wilson Reagan, the 40th President of the United States, has finally, at long last, succumbed to the terrible disease with which the Good Lord, in all of His mysterious wisdom, chose to slowly and methodically torture him for ten long years. That's right my friends, having had a whole decade's worth of fun, Jesus has formally decreed that it's "bedtime for Bonzo" – and today, the Gipper met the Reaper.

(Dabs tear from eye.)

Yes, it is sad. We spent eighteen months planning my statesmanlike D-Day photo-op in Omaha, France – only to have Nancy pull the plug on Ronnie just in time to steal my thunder. Even in death, Ronald Reagan is grabbing the spotlight from a Bush. But let us take some solace in the knowledge that with His wonderful sense of irony, the Lord had President Reagan succumb to the same thing that all those AIDS-stricken folks he ignored throughout the 1980's did – pneumonia.

Yes, at the overly-ripe old age of 93, Ronald Reagan lived longer than any other President in our nation's history, despite my family's mutually supportive friendship with the Hinckleys. Often credited as being the father of the modern conservative movement, "Dutch" casts a long and impossible-to-escape shadow over every right-wing borrow-and-spend trickle-downer like me who has come in his wake. With the passage of time, he has become an icon. And even though people in the know can tell you Reagan was really just an affably senile zombie propped up by a Nixon-groomed cabal of brilliantly nefarious underlings, today I will do nothing but sing his praises. Because what's that old expression? Something about "people who live in grass houses shouldn't get stoned," right?

Get the GODLY New Book!

Anyway, I know Ronald Reagan had a lot of fans, and since this is an election year, I want people to believe that I not only revered him, but am him – even though I'm not going to lollygag for seven decades to begin to lose my ability to speak and think!

So let it be thought throughout the land that I always respected the Gipper – even when he was my daddy's boss. Even every year from 1981-1989, when Poppy would call Reagan a know-nothing California phony between gulps of single-malt scotch, then hack our Thanksgiving turkey to pieces with a cleaver while shrieking, "take THAT, you saggy-necked, job-stealing old buzzard!" And also let people think that I always respected President Reagan's pretty wife Nancy, too – even when mom would scratch her eyes out of magazine photos and call her "that stuck-up skin-and-bones rhymes-with-mucking-door." Sure, I may have joined Mom and Doro in the Kennebunkport garage for the occasional spirited game of "Club the Actress," but my heart was never really in it when I was holding a Zippo to the hem or doing my mark-of-Zoro-thing with carpet cutters on Mom's mannequin in the red Adolfo gown.

Indeed, I have always taken pains to appear to like the Reagans – if for no other reason than I understand that my family name would have been a steaming pile of political poo if it hadn't been for Dutch. Even after he whooped my daddy's ass in the 1980 Republican primaries, Ronald Reagan not only showed pity and let my daddy join him on the GOP ticket, but then showed his confidence in Poppy's abilities by routinely letting him be a stand-in at fancy funerals for famous dead folks. And as a result, my father was able to keep our family's many bathrooms fully stocked with only the finest soaps, lotions and towels from five-star hotels all the world over. For that, I cannot help but be silently grateful.

You know, I still remember the first time my father ever took me to visit the Oval Office. The year was 1985. President Reagan was poring over the newly-released "Garfield & Odie Adventures" treasury, and his signature musk of Grecian Formula, Old Spice and sodden DependsŪ hung heavy in the air. As my daddy approached the grand old desk to diligently top off the President's Sanka, Reagan looked up. With that famous twinkle in his eye, he beckoned me to his side, smiled that charming crooked smile, then gestured to my father and asked, "Who's the fairy serving coffee?" It was then, at that very moment, I knew that I myself could and should aim much higher than just bankrupting a succession of suspiciously financed Texas oil corporations. Yes, I could aim for the very tip-tippity-top: the Presidency of the United States of America!

And so today, with President Reagan's body still warm, I want all the people who worshipped him to take note of the many non-superficial ways in which I just coincidentally seem so mega-similar to him. From our mutual fondness for dressing up as cowboys to hang out on our camera-ready luxury "ranches," to our firm belief in 35-hour work weeks punctuated with plenty of energy-restoring naps, President Reagan and I are cut from the very same denim. Indeed, we both delegate all the complicated stuff, can't be bothered with boring old facts, and scared America into spending billions of dollars to fight an "Evil Empire." He choose Russia, I went with Iraq – both based on solid intelligence that they were already harmlessly crumbling from within. And that is why, taken as a whole, I'd much rather have voters associate me with Uncle Ronnie than with my own daddy, who is, I'm sorry to say, just a sissy one-termer who nobody liked enough to re-elect.

In closing, as much as my fiercely competitive family may privately resent and despise that spotlight-stealing B-actor for having hijacked the throne of conservatism from its rightful Bush holders, we also know better than anyone how best to exploit death and morbid sentimentality for political gain. That is why I pledge today that the American public can count on me to invoke Ronald Reagan's so-called achievements in every speech from now until Election Day – typically within two to three sentences of the first 9/11, "evildoer," or "lovers of FREEDOMŪ" reference.

Ronald Reagan always told us that for America, the best was yet to come. I know, I know – leave it to a fruity actor to find a life philosophy in a Sinatra song, right? But let me tell you something – he was right. Because after him came Bushes. And one day soon, after Poppy's term and my two terms and Jebber's two terms and Marvin's two terms – and hell, maybe even Noelle's terms – we'll rename that Reagan airport and aircraft carrier after us, slap our family portrait on the zillion dollar bill, and bulldoze that geriatric asswipe's legacy right off the face of the public consciousness!

In closing, it is with a heavy heart that I recall that Ronnie was not a born-again evangelical Christian like I say I am, but a divorced fair-weather believer who tried, but never quite got the hang of using Jesus for political gain. So as I told Nancy in my phone call to her from Air Force One's mechanical bull, "It's always sad when the unsaved begin their treacherous journey towards the gaping mouth of Hell's eternal bar-b-que."

And so, let us bow our heads in recognition that Mr. Reagan has slipped the girly bonds of Earth to kiss the face of Satan.

Thank you, and God Bless Bush America.

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