President Bush is now sober!

WASHINGTON, DC - President Bush has been sober for at least two weeks now, say White House officials. The claims of sobriety come at a critical time for the embattled president, who faces mounting criticism at home over the war in Iraq.

"In the past the president has occasionally liked to open up the doors of perception, and really think hard about the problems of state," said White House spokesman Tony Snow. "The president has found that a tot of some good old fashioned awareness-expanding soft malt whiskey has been a boon and comfort to him in these dark and difficult days of his administration. Moreover, it has brought clarity and clear-mindedness to issues that many others find boring and complicated, issues like war and abortion, and helped him understand them completely, rather than only partly, which is how the democrats understand things."

Critics of the president claim that spending his days drunk in the White House does not make for the most effective leadership strategy. Tony Snow, however, rejects these allegations. It is a sign of how well things are going in Iraq that the president has been able to unwind a little and celebrate," he said. "It would be better if all of us were a little bit less critical of the president right now, and instead focused on all the things that are going right. "This negativity doesn't do anybody any good, and doesn't help us defeat terror."

The President's new-found sobriety, however, may represent a sea change for American foreign and domestic policy. President Bush has made numerous public appearances recently without trying to exit rooms via cupboards or slurring incoherently. On one occasion, the president Bush also seemed to know exactly where he was.

The White House denies the significance of the president's new-found state of sobriety, and discourages the public from looking too deeply into it. "A president being sober is perfectly ordinary, and nothing to make a big deal out of," Tony Snow told press. "People should just get on with their lives and let us do our jobs in peace, without all this prying”