Although I would like to think that Christians will read this article — because it is, after all, partly exegetical — I have to be realistic. So I’ll “ruin” the punchline and tell you now that there’s a New Testament Bible passage in the last sentence of this article. Those of you for whom this article is really intended might as well skip to it now, because although you can’t bring yourself to read the article, it can’t really be against your rules to read a few Bible verses, can it?

This is another of my “Balaam’s Ass” articles. You all know that story, right? That’s the one where one of G-d’s prophets refused to give out His message, so He resorted to using a donkey. For those who think I’m just being crude, “ass” is the word used in the King James Version for “donkey.” And since when I write these kinds of articles, most Christians think I’m just being an ass, it seems appropriate.

It also fits because, frankly, I don’t particularly like writing Bible-based messages. To me, they feel like a waste of time — besides which I feel compelled to re-read sections of the Bible to check my memory and I don’t care all that much for that, either. But once they come to me, I can’t shake the feeling that they have to be said. Some people seriously believe they’re Christians, but don’t actually read the Bible; they never understand how they’ve lost their way. And that’s why I finally created a whole new category called “Balaam’s Ass” for these kinds of articles.

Anyway, read on for your message.

If I carefully controlled just about everything that you were able to hear about me and you never got a chance to meet me, I’m pretty sure I could convince you all that I’m one of the smartest and kindest guys in the world.

My blog, of course, would have to dramatically change. Part of controlling things so that you would come to have this opinion is that I’d have to tell you what you want to hear — or, at least, things you that would make you feel good about me. If I ever told you anything bad, I’d have to tell you that I wasn’t involved in it.

Even though I’d trash the hell out of either my enemies or fellow party members if they got in my way, I’d have to make sure you didn’t know I was responsible for the trashing. I could help this along by hiring a strategist who would take most of the heat — and, actually, it will be his job to plan these things, so I can “honestly” disclaim responsibility. I’ll make sure it appears that I’m taking the high road. After all, as I keep telling you, I’m a Christian in the White House.

Similarly, if I continually hooked up with friends who were doing bad things, I’d have to convince you that a) these things weren’t really so bad and/or b) it was a mistake and/or c) I wasn’t really involved in that aspect of things. Halliburton and other issues involving the rape of Iraq and America by overcharging the military, or the incredible rise of gasoline prices over the last few years. None of this would be my fault. It would just be a coincidence that I was a failed oil businessman before taking over as President of the United States.

And you’d buy that. I don’t care how many bloggers you have. Me and my friends own the mainstream press! Who’s going to read a blog when they can watch the Bloviator on Faux “News”? (Besides, we’re working the blogosphere, too.)

Part of the reason you’d buy all this is because I’d continually tell you that I’m a Christian. I’m a god-fearing man. I don’t get blowjobs in the White House (not even from my wife). And if I do, well, you’re never going to hear about it.

Fact is, under my watch, you’re never going to hear about anything that happens in the White House. I don’t care what it is. Good, bad, or indifferent — what I’m doing is off-limits to you. Oil executives in secret White House meetings to figure out how to get the price of oil to $4 per gallon? You’re not going to hear about that. Those oil companies say we need a war to get Iraq’s oil? They got it, but you’ll be convinced it was a just war. All my Administration had to do was keep trying reasons until we found one you could live with.

And to ensure that things stay this way, I’m going to run the first American regime in history that will feed hundreds — that’s right hundreds — of “news” stories telling you what a great guy I am, how terrific my policies are and give you plenty of reasons to continue to be happy that there is a Christian in the White House.

In all, at least 20 federal agencies, including the Defense Department and the Census Bureau, have made and distributed hundreds of television news segments in the past four years, records and interviews show. Many were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government’s role in their production. — David Barstow and Robin Stein, “Under Bush, a New Age of Prepackaged TV News” (March 13, 2005) The New York Times.

Just try to overcome that!

And you’re never going to complain about this. For one thing, you don’t really care. Again in part because of my control of the news, you’re not going to get any information about how these things can impact you; anyone trying to warn you just won’t be heard. If, somehow, they are — well, we have ways of dealing with them, don’t we, Mr. Plame?

Even Ms. Amanpour, of whom America was so enamored during the peak of the Iraqi War, was neutralized when she started to get out of hand and reported a few things we didn’t want heard:

I mean, having covered so many of these conflicts and having been at almost every US military intervention of the ’90s and basically the last 14 years, and to be frank, having supported many of them, I am still very uneasy about this one and particularly the relationship between the media and the administration. I stood in Baghdad at the end of the war and did what I thought were perfectly routine reports about the looting that was going on and the various beginnings of–I mean, you could use the word chaos… and the Secretary of Defense basically accused people like me of selectively editing, of misrepresenting the truth. If you remember, there was a–a famous quote of his, “Oh, that same old vase… that keeps coming out over and over again.” Now that’s funny and it probably got a lot of laughs by the Pentagon press corps, but it’s not helpful because it seeks to deny what’s actually going on. — Ms. Amanpour, quoted in Betsy Vasquez, “CNN’s Christiane Amanpour joins the chorus of top ‘mainstream’ media people saying they’ve been bullied to the right by the Bushies” (September 16-30, 2003) Vol. I, Issue 1., The Moderate Independent.

Sure, you’ll occasionally hear stories about how we allowed a male prostitute into the White House. You’ll hear that he pretended to be a journalist and lobbed softball questions to the Administration. But you won’t care about that. After all, didn’t I tell you there’s a Christian in the White House?

Besides, who’s going to tell you those stories? I dare you to search Google for “Jeff Gannon” — you won’t find a single mainstream media story about it. You’re only going to hear about this crap from biased bloggers, that pretend-rag, the New York Times and foreign newspapers, like the Guardian Unlimited in Great Britain.

Who you gonna worship? The Christian in the White House, or liars and foreigners?

Let’s face it: As long as I continue to tell you what you want to hear, you’ll ignore reality.

And by the time you decide to read Acts 20:29 through 20:35, it will be too late.