Put yourself in Karen Hughes's or Karl Rove's shoes. Every morning they slog into work faced with the Sisyphean task of once again shoring up the Big Guy's self-image. 9-11 of course worked wonders. No doubt Karen and Karl pass each other little fold-up Post-it notes saying things like "Remember Washington National Cathedral!" or "Remember Putin!"

Still, when, day in and day out, the public prints and the TV are littered with verbal land mines (here's Christopher Hitchens referring to Him as "supremely unintelligent" and there's Gore Vidal saying, well, things you wouldn't want your least-favorite uncle to hear), it's just about impossible to keep such remarks away from Him, what with His tendency during schedule breaks to run upstairs and munch out while channel-surfing.

OK, so He doesn't like to read. That means newspapers and magazines are not really a problem. The main problem is TV, and now as soon as He completes His special Pentagon-designed 18-month crash-course in how to use a computer, the Internet itself.

We sympathize with Karen and Karl. Not only do we sympathize. We have come up with, we feel, an enduring solution to 43's self-image problem. We have devised a presidential I.Q. test created specifically for the current occupant of the White House.

It is a test on which, we guarantee, He will do well.

For content, we went back to the era of His childhood and rooted about in the detritus of what passed for culture in those days.

As for the form of the test, we were acutely aware of the synapse-singeing dangers of the standard multiple-choice format. This, we kept reminding ourselves, is a man who apparently really does divide the world, nay, the universe, into TWO parts (in case you've forgotten: 1. Good, and 2. Evil.). Imagine the Advil moments you induce if you try to force this person to think in shades of gray, not to mention nuance, ambiguity, or (God forbid) metaphor.

We eliminated such problems by using the simplest of testing devices: two lists requiring only that the testee match the items.

Then we came to the length problem. We understand that Our Guy has trouble keeping His attention on the few big-print words written by Karl or Karen on ONE three-by-five note card. (Yes, yes, from the back of the room comes the hectoring reminder: "Remember Washington National Cathedral!" To which we reply: It does appear that when on a real adrenaline high, Our Guy can focus for a somewhat longer period. But we can't destroy a World Trade Center every week or so just to keep Our Boy's adrenaline-level up, can we?)

Anyway, we decided a total of 20 questions seemed about right.

The silver-lining of the attention problem, of course, is that the test can be administered REPEATEDLY with equally valid results! Not every day, surely, but most likely a weekly testing would do wonders long-term for His opinion of himself under the ceaseless onslaught of slings, arrows, and nasty epithets from the liberal-controlled media.

Herewith, then, and proudly, we perform the FREE patriotic service of presenting to the White House mandarins, the Magellan's Log Presidential I.Q. Test.

END

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