(2005-01-23) — A red-faced White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett announced this morning that the inaugural address delivered by President George Bush on Thursday was actually an in-house parody that was inadvertantly placed on the podium.

“It was a satirical piece posted in the men’s room to lampoon the neocons,” said Mr. Bartlett. “The bathroom version was called ‘What if we really meant it?’ and it was supposed to be a send-up of American foreign policy for the past 40 years.”

The speech called for an end to tyranny worldwide, pledged U.S. support to democracy movements in totalitarian states and said U.S. foreign relations would be predicated on how other countries treated their own citizens. In short, the speech Mr. Bush delivered said the antidote to terror at home was the spread of freedom abroad.

“The irony,” said Mr. Bartlett, “is that the president delivered it so sincerely, that it looked like he really meant it. The guys over at the State Department had coffee shooting out of their nostrils. Of course, the good news is that none of our allies took it seriously either.”