Betty's Reply:
As with all instances when Jesus appears to veer recklessly from the Republican Party platform or asks the onerous or inconvenient, we must call up the Holy Spirit to flutter on our shoulder and interpret scripture nimbly enough to invert its apparent meaning. For example, when Jesus asked all those who followed Him to give away all their possessions, He was speaking to His disciples, who were all notoriously poor. None had a summer home on the Dead Sea. Therefore, in asking them to give away all they had, He was simply asking them to give nothing to the poor, since that is precisely what they had to give. As a Republican, I try to follow this glorious tradition. Besides, Jesus told us that the poor will always be with us and I would never do anything that would risk making my Lord and Savior out to be a liar, dear.

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Betty's Reply:
Upon first seeing Laura descend the staircase at the Texas Governor's mansion wearing colors that didn't belong in the same time zone together (although, given her often ample posterior, this is often not technically a problem), I offered her my first fashion tip: "Do buy a full-length mirror, dear." In subsequent years, watching her personify Republican Glamour by appearing at diplomatic functions wearing elastic waistband velour pantsuits clearly chosen with Pollyannaish optimism with regard to size, I became almost discernibly tetchy in her company, thinking she had ignored my millinery mentoring. It was only years later that I realized that the salutary effects of my seemingly sage advice were significantly undermined by the effect that combining tequila with Xanax has on the human eye's ability to focus.

Thank-you in advance for a Christian answer!

Betty's Reply:
Anyone who engages in anal sex is going all the way. All the way to Hell.

Betty's Reply:
I am acutely aware of that both the Apostle Paul and the Southern Baptist Convention (in ascending order of authority) have decreed that a wife must submit to her husband, although I recall nothing about requiring ladies to claim an appellation that is a vulgar colloquialism for the penis. As it is my dear husband's unspoken wish that I do precisely as I please, I am in unwavering Baptist obedience to him in my every action and utterance – even when he says things that the less discerning might construe as annoyance or disapproval.

Betty's Reply:
Honestly, I don't believe my efforts will be required. As Laura told me over prayer and Prozac the other morning, "If Bushie thought that those embryo parts got you drunk or high, there probably wouldn't be any left by now. But that gorgon Nancy Reagan is barking up the wrong tree on this little cause of hers. I mean to say, Alzheimer's is the last thing Bushie is going to get excited about. It's not like he has to worry about anyone noticing if he got it."

Betty's Reply:
Dear Mr. Rager:

On my many lovely visits to Charleston, I've always been impressed with the gentility and charm of its historic homes and courteous residents. As a Southern Baptist, there is something rather exhilarating in walking along verdant, cobblestone streets seemingly untouched since the halcyon antebellum years when Negroes took your orders, not your handbag. It is because I cherish such delightful memories that I have willed myself not to allow your coarse letter to dilute my otherwise favorable impression of Charleston's residents, dear.

As for your question, the Bible teaches us that the gentler gender is wicked, imprudent in picking fresh produce, the cause of all of mankind's problems and only endurable when she has something other than words in her mouth. Having recently met Naomi Judd at a cocktail party, I am now somewhat less inclined to second-guess the Lord's seemingly misogynistic rantings. As such, I would never presume to tell a man in any overt fashion what to do without resort to plausible deniability.

Fortunately, upon the consultation of counsel, it so happens that Jesus is not technically a penised-person, but a god. (It turns out that our Lord was not speculating when He said, "For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it." Matthew 19:12) As such, I am considerably less fettered in my otherwise convivial conversations with Him when someone who was frosty to me at a cocktail party is in desperate need of a rather languorous smiting.

If the a hoary collection of Tijuana hookers and the frolicsome men of Skull and Bones are to be believed, our President does have a penis, so less direct means of influence must be employed. Therefore, if I wish to impel Mr. Bush, I have two rather effective options. The first is putting a bug in Jesus' ear. Knowing that the Lord is a giddy gossip, if I tell Him something "in confidence," I am sanguine in the knowledge that no sooner have I unclasped my lovely hands from prayer to admire my diamonds, Jesus will have told Mr. Bush and half of Brazil what I said. Once I cottoned onto this all-but instantaneous channel of communication to the White House, I started testing its effectiveness with admirable results. After I peppered prayers with inventive information, I would immediately turn on Fox News to watch President Bush react. In time, I became rather bold, as it was not as if I had to worry about the CIA disabusing Mr. Bush of any misapprehensions I might have encouraged!

Truly, it was as if each of my sonorously delivered prayers was a shiny kernel of corn, which the Lord Jesus would immediately drop into a rat maze and I could sit back and watch with a sense of power and amusement as the most powerful rat in the world changed course in response to each carefully edited prayer.

For example, when I wish Mr. Bush to keep quiet for a while and go on one of his many seemingly interminable vacations to his Hollywood set in Crawford, I simply tell Jesus that Al Queda is planning to dirty bomb the entire New York Times. Of course, mishaps arise because Jesus' attention to detail is not what it could be (as anyone who reads all four Gospels in one sitting soon realizes). I am thinking, of course, of the time I told Jesus in the strictest of confidence, that it was a slam-dunk that Saddam Hussein has ADD. Apparently, Jesus' unfamiliarity with English acronyms mixed with Mr. Bush's dyslexia produced a completely garbled three-letter pronouncement. The next thing we knew, we were at war. Goodness me, talk about the power of prayer!

But when I really want to influence the President I bypass Jesus altogether and go straight to Laura. She has her own particular persuasions, which were emulated with far less success and secrecy at Abu Ghraib. I, of course, am not at liberty to reveal her methods, but it is not by chance that every time our handsome President falls off of a bicycle or a settee he shows up with bruise marks that sport an inverted bas relief of Laura's mall-quality cocktail ring.

Betty's Reply:
First off all, allow me to clear up a misunderstanding. It is only Mary Worshipers (Roman Catholics) who are opposed to slipping plastic on anything other than their furniture. Baptists, as usual, are one step ahead of those Papal-ring-kissing pedophile pagans. Our aversion to the whole idea of any sexual touching (outside of Pastor in his Motel Harlot Outreach Program) renders prophylactic accoutrements somewhat beside the point.

While I publicly abhor abortion, I privately relish the notion that it's mainly liberals who avail themselves to it. I like to think of it as electoral Darwinism. So, have at it, you sex-crazed Democrat Jezebels!

Betty's Reply:
After the earlier, impertinent comment made by Ron, Jr. during the previous Republican convention ("What is [Bush's] qualification? Other than that he is no longer an obnoxious drunk?"), my only surprise is that Ron Jr. was brave enough to stand so close to an open grave.

Betty's Reply:
Not so fast, dear. The first faith-based initiative will be to ensure that there actually is a second term. This time around, in addition to rising dead Republican voters from the grave, conjuring absentee ballots and exorcising demons from voter registration books, Mr. Bush will call upon the miracle of paperless electronic voting. And, in the words of every televangelist in a Sears suit, "I feel a victory coming on! Glory!"

Betty's Reply:
The longest, sharpest stiletto heel Manolo Blahnik makes. Just as long as it works with your outfit, the FBI can never prove it was purchased as a weapon.

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