Bush, bin Laden trade bodies for a day; gain renewed appreciation for one another

(This article may appear in The Pedestrian later this year if Bush wins reelection since there's only going to be one issue in the spring this year. So I'll have plenty of time to add more Bush jokes, write an ending, and discover some synonyms for the word "similar")

WASHINGTON--President Bush signed a historic and unexpected peace accord with Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden this morning after the two announced they had gained a renewed appreciation for one another after switching bodies for a day following simultaneous freak electrical storms in Washington and the Peshawar region of Pakistan on Friday.

President Bush was jogging down Pennsylvania Avenue Friday morning when he was struck by lightning from a passing electrical storm. Meanwhile, in Pakistan, as bin Laden was being shuffled from one safe house to the next, his dialysis machine was struck by lightning from a similar storm.

Secret Service agents noticed an immediate change in the President's demeanor. "He went down fast, but he got right back up again," said Timothy Nielsen, one of the Secret Service agents assigned to the President at the time. "He jumped up and shouted 'Why do I now inhabit the body of the Great Satan?' I remember thinking that was odd." Al Qaeda #2 Ayman al-Zawahiri who was with bin Laden at the time witnessed similarly strange behavior from bin Laden after he had been struck. He told reporters than bin Laden stood up and simply muttered a string of obscenities that would have made "Almighty Allah Himself blush."

In yesterday's press conference, bin Laden claimed that the freak accident had opened his eyes to the difficulties of being the leader of the free world. "I thought leading the Zionist Infidel Nation would be a breeze. After all, they live on the riches they earn by exploiting the blood of God-fearing Muslims everywhere. But all the meetings, the decisions, the Jews...did you know this guy gets up at 6 a.m.?"

President Bush reported a similar epiphany. "We must never forgive and we must never forget what these evildoers did to us. That said, it's not so easy living under the boot of American-Zionist imperialism."

Some advisors and people close to the President or the terrorists kingpin had suspicions that something was wrong. "I did question some of the things he did," said First Lady Laura Bush. "When I asked George if he liked my new outfit, I was surprised when he told me 'cover yourself, for your halotry is surely shameful in front of our God, Allahu Akbar.' It was certainly out of character." Prime Minister Ariel Sharon expressed similar sentiments. "When I called [the President] up to discuss the roadmap to peace, I didn't expect him to vow to push my people into the sea back to the hornèd beasts from whose loins we had sprung."

President Bush had similar problems getting into character. Al-Zawahiri told reporters that bush initially had trouble adjusting to life as a cave-dwelling Islamic radical. "You should have heard how he pronounced 'Allahu Akbar.' Our great leader had never before pronounced the name of our God with an f before." Al-Zawahiri told reporters that bin Laden's inner circle was also irritated by their leader's sudden mispronunciation of the word "nuclear."