acing falling approval numbers that recently dropped lower than Bob Hope's balls, President Bush this week resorted to his usual tactic of becoming more conservative when threatened. The president may have gone too far this time, however, alienating even his core base of religious assholes.

After having his personal dog walker rejected for a seat on the Supreme Court, and his backup neo-Nazi facing a similarly tough uphill climb, Bush outlined a bold new philosophy in a televised speech on Sunday.

"Jesus was a fag," the president announced to a stunned roomful of didn't-know-Jesus-was-a-fag listeners. "Love everybody? The meek shall inherit the earth? Give me a break. The man didn't even have a reliable hairstyle."

"Women should be seen, not heard," continued Bush, attempting to carve out his own niche deeper in the dogmatic hinterlands. "But by 'seen' I mean just their eyes, as the rest of their sinful bodies should be covered up in padded dog-attack training suits to restore some modesty to this once great nation."

Over the course of the president's speech, Bush called for the dismantling of the Internet, a moratorium on all music, and the banning of all dancing that isn't line dancing. This latest development has renewed national debate over where the president is crazy like a fox, crazy like a cuckoo bird, or stupid like a bathtub.

Bush's approval rating dipped even lower during the speech, scraping audibly against some theoretical bottom of the barrel, and an instant poll immediately afterward pegged the president's approval at 12%, a record low for a US president and below even the ratings for Osama Bin Laden, syphilis, sour milk, Gigli and total thermonuclear annihilation. Political observers, however, were most impressed that a full 12% of the population still support Bush.

"Apparently more Americans than we had previously assumed agree with the president that Jesus was a homo," explained a stunned Walter Dumruch, of the McClurg Institute. "God knows how long they've been waiting for a political figure to give voice to their inner convictions. The president takes these results as a mandate to push forward with his new 'Screw Jesus' agenda."

By stepping off the edge of the political world and officially becoming too conservative for even the nation's the most extreme conservatives this week, the president embarked on a journey through uncharted territory that has left critics at a loss for words.

"It's weird, it's almost like he's wrapped around to almost being liberal now, but not really," mused Danby Frinkman, local man of letters. "He's lapped the field, in terms of conservatism, but no one's sure what that means."

What it most certainly means is that Bush will have to reconsider his nomination of Samuel A. Alito Jr. for the Supreme Court, since even a man so conservative that he doesn't believe in dinosaurs or long hair on dogs would be seen as too soft to be in keeping with the president's current philosophy. Several deposed foreign dictators and cartoon villains are likely to be considered for the president's next nomination.

Bush's political handlers hope these recent developments can be explained by an external trauma, like the president being hit in the head by a falling brick some time last week, or anything a shovel-hitting intervention might be able to correct. The president's handlers hope to jostle Bush back to his comfortably untenable "Jesus was Straight/Screw the Poor/Bomb the Brown People" conservative agenda by early next week at the latest.

ne the most potentially controversial stories in recent years was successfully nipped in the bud by the Bush White House and its ever-faithful assistant, the national news media, as the ongoing story of former Cheney Chief of Staff Lewis Libby's indictment, the first of a sitting White House official in history, was relegated to page 3 by bored news directors and other major Republican-driven news stories.

Libby, called "Scooter" by his many enemies, is the first and likely only casualty of the under-covered story of a White House leak, in which the identity of a working CIA operative, conveniently the wife of Bush opponent Joseph Wilson. Wilson's wife Valerie Plame was outed as a spy by a conservative columnist, and his source was traced back to the White House. While liberals hoped the 22-month investigation by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald would reveal the dirty tactic came from a source as high as presidential counselor Karl Rove, the most the Democrats could succeed with was a guy named Scooter. And the victory itself was short-lived.

As soon as news of the Libby indictment, a potentially president-destroying story, was announced, the Cheney Chief of Staff resigned and the White House began its onslaught of less important announcements, starting with the retraction of Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, the nomination of mini-Scalia Samuel Alito, and more news from the clusterfuck in the Middle East that is Iraq. To seal the deal and firmly erase the recent memory of criminal charges against White House staff, the president released a string of obscene and bizarre comments guaranteed to push the story off the page—covered elsewhere in this edition of the commune.

Democrats and White House insiders alike were surprised by the effectiveness of the Bush administration's "Operation: Bury the Story."

DNC strategist Michael Fallusmore: "Damn, but they did it good. We were a little busy basking in the glee of what should have been a catastrophe for the Bush-ites and GOP. Then we woke the next morning and couldn't find a trace of it anywhere. The news media were suddenly much more interested in the predictable choice of a conservative white guy for the Supreme Court. Real shockaroo there. But still, you have to give them credit for weaseling out of the unweaselable. I guess all we can do now is hope some reporter finds that dead hooker in Karl Rove's Toyota."

An inside source at the White House, some Bush college buddy whose phone we tapped, agreed with the quick removal of the story.

"I totally can't believe it worked," said the source, then giggled as he did a line of blow. "I suppose it would have been a hard uphill battle if all the major media outlets hadn't bought into the importance of these other routine stories and decided to shrug off the boring details of criminal and possibly treasonous behavior inside the walls of the highest pockets of U.S Government. What? Yeah, I'm completely wasted, so what? I always talk like that."

The president did his part as leader of his party and platform to diminish the importance of the story to the news media and the American people, by dressing in ugly suits, appearing as unphotogenic as possible, and keeping his comments quite limited to make for lousy B-roll for the visually oriented media outlets. Bush responded Thursday to Libby's plea of not guilty to the charges.

"Yep, yep," said the president, quickly shuffling off to a birthday party of a friend being held at a Washington, D.C. Chuck E. Cheese.

Good people, you are now reading at a licensed gun owner. That's the truth—except for the license thing. I'm still studying for the exam.

And if you think having a gun doesn't change your life, you should shoot yourself right now. Oh, that's right—you don't own a gun! No, my friends, gun ownership changes everything. Colors are brighter, things taste better, people are truly scared of you wherever you go. Sometimes I don't even have to show them the gun, the bulge in the side of my jacket is enough to get me a front place in line.

Lest you think it's pure fear that gets us gun owners the good life, it's not. Respect. People respect gun owners, because they have taken the biggest step in self-defense that pansies and left-wingers don't have the stomach for. But if the local police department's riot force comes swooping on them down for the big martial law takeover, who do you think they're going to call? Not Ghostbusters, '80s nostalgia fans.

I went gun shopping originally just so I could protect my life, my car, my house, and my wife, in that exact order, from my insane fascist neighbors, the Dickenses. I soon discovered that danger lurks everywhere, and only gun owners can see it all around us. With a little help from the gun store guy. Did you realize you could be walking down the street, minding your own business or participating in a foot race around the world, and someone can simply walk up and stick a knife in your face and demand all your money? And get this—if you give them all your money, they could still kill you anyway. There's no law says they can't. Well, that was all I needed to hear to be put in a proper paranoid frame of mind. I asked for—nay, demanded I get my gun right then.

Most gun owners have to wait about a week for a background check and all to go through, but the shop owner said he was giving away guns for every purchase of his special $900 bullets. I worked out the math and it turns out it's about the same price as buying the guns and the bullets, and since it was a free gun, I didn't even have to wait for the background check! Score: Rok Finger.

The gun owner tried to convince me a derringer would fit my own personal "style," but did you know those things were the smallest in the store? What's the point? Why even have a gun at all? Why not just go full-blown pussy and buy a taser or something? Not yours truly, nor me. No, good people, Rok Finger needs the kind of false security only provided by a long barrel .357 Magnum. Now who's dangerous, invisible stalkers in the night? Me, that's who.

Not that owning the IROC-Z of guns has been easy. I bought a holster for it, only to realize it doesn't fit in the holster. So I stay up all night and, with Camembert's help, refit the damned holster, only to find out I can't walk properly with the gun in the holster—damn my otherwise perfect height! All that trouble of getting a long barrel gun and I had to saw it off in the end anyway. But I understand that makes it more illegal, which makes it more exciting.

I was also dismayed to find out you can't reuse the bullets. I must've wasted about 79 shots before I realized that. I had been picking up all my bullets so I could recycle them—well, I never could get back those 8 shots I fired into that bus. Only then did I find out you have to buy new bullets every time you want to shoot something. Yeah, it's kind of a rip-off.

And the best thing ever, now that I'm on the porch most of the night shooting at random animals, I don't see my neighbors so much anymore. None of them, on any side. I suppose the Dickenses are inside their house, shades drawn, reevaluating their takeover of our block.

So sleep tight, neighborhood. Rok Finger's on watch now.

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