President's Statement on God's Loving, Compassionate Decision to Give Metastatic Cancer to Press Secretary Tony Snow

Obviously, a lot of folks here at the White House worry about their friend. And they wonder why the Lord, who already put Tony through the horrible agony of cancer once, would sadistically opt to do so again. Well if there's one thing the Lord and I have in common, it's a righteous sense of purpose. Yes, for just as I refuse to let Arabs drive our troops off "their" land, neither will God abide doctors depriving his beautiful creation cancer of its FREEDOM^® to blossom throughout Tony Snow's body – a body which God is only loaning him anyway. Praise Jesus!

In the short time Tony has worked here at the White House, he's done a great job. As pretty much the first and only member of my administration who is genuinely funny and likeable, Tony has been super-effective at putting a human face on inhuman policies, and finding the teensiest-weensiest flecks of silver lining which cling to the huge clammy turd that is Bush-era reality. And so despite our loving God's apparent desire to see Tony dead, we're hoping for the best for him. Because with new and more damaging revelations of my administration's criminality coming to light almost daily, we could really use his easy-going charm to distract the press from all the bright red blood in the water.

Fortunately, Tony is upbeat, and his attitude is that he's not going to let this whip him. And the American people are rooting for him – if for no other reason than he's the staffer most likely to write an honest behind-the-scenes book once I'm out of office. And we're hoping that the Lord, in all His bitchy fickleness, will have a change of heart and decide to let the medicines make cure Tony again. And so my message to Tony is, stay strong; I'm looking forward to the day that you come back to the White House and spin my moronic decisions faster than a whirligig in a tornado.

In the meantime, Dana Perino will be filling in as Press Secretary. She's traumatized over Tony's illness, of course. So I would urge everyone in the press corps to please forego any tough questions for the next 21 months or so, and focus instead on her sweet smile and perky little rack.

Thank you.