Bushes Battle Over Bulge

March 22, 2005

Associated Press

WASHINGTON, DC -- As Terri Schiavo waits for a Federal judge to decide her fate, a far more intense battle over the right-to-life is brewing inside the Oval Office. The First Family and presidential advisors are engaged in a fierce disagreement over whether to remove the tube that feeds President Bush’s brain.

In a startling revelation, Texas Monthly has reported that then-Citizen Bush suffered a severe stroke in 1993 caused by alcohol poisoning. In a radical life-saving procedure, neurosurgeons at the University of Texas Medical Center inserted a tube at the base of Mr. Bush’s skull. A wire inside the tube feeds minute amounts of electrical current to his cerebellum, controlling essential motor functions.

The device was first spotted in public at a presidential debate in October 2004. The mysterious bulge on President Bush’s back was variously dismissed as bad tailoring, a bullet-proof vest, or a colostomy bag that had shifted during a flight on Air Force One.

First Lady Laura Bush believes that removing the tube could help the President lead a more normal life. In private, Mrs. Bush has remarked that her husband cannot go to the bathroom without consulting Karl Rove. Bush’s political advisors insist on their right to control the destiny of the man they rescued from a failed business career to become the most powerful human on the planet.

A senior White House official, speaking on conditions of anonymity, declared that right-to-life issues were crucial to the success of the second Bush Administration.

“This is more important than the insurgency in Iraq, the growth of the Federal deficit, taxpayer-funded propaganda, the scavenging of natural preserves for oil, and the attempt to kill Social Security,” the official said. “Fortunately for us, nobody is paying attention to any of that.”