I have finally settled on a name for Buddy's replacement. The Secret Service guys who pick up Big Macs for me and take out the trash call him “Photo Op,” but I prefer “No. 2.” It's everywhere.

        What was I thinking to get another dog? It's the dumbest thing I've done since I let Monica play with the red phone in the Oval Office. (We were lucky Boris was lit like a Molotov cocktail.)

        This dang dog is hounding me like Ken Starr. It chewed up the ceremonial slippers that came with those donations from China that Al Gore collected, that I knew nothing about at that point in time.

Labrador reliever

        In fact, “No. 2” kinda reminds me a little bit of Al, the way he gets something in his teeth and just won't let go even if you swing him against the side of the garage. He dang-near chewed the legs off that furniture Hillary took from the White House. When she sees that, we will both have to strap on our flying lamp helmets. I plan to be in Brazil judging a string bikini contest, and No. 2 is on his own.

        That goes for Al, too.

        I don't know if he lost the election, but I'm pretty sure he lost his mind. First there was that shaggy beard that made him look like the third-runner-up in the Castro Look-alike Contest. Then he got all sweaty and attacked George Bush No. 2 — about the war on terrorism! Felony stupid.

Shish-ka-bubba

        Al must be smoking reefer by the bale again. As Jesse Jackson says, when you point a finger at someone, four more are pointing right back at you. He should know. Me too.

        But now that Al opened a fresh can of terrorism questions, there are all these stories pointing out how many times we let Osama slip off the hook. How was I to know the poll numbers would flip after Sept. 11?

        Same thing on Enron. Every time Al opens his mouth, he barfs all over my legacy.

        The media blamed Bush as usual, but now people have figured out that all those CEOs started cookin' their books right after Al announced there was “no controlling legal authority.”

        We're just lucky we're not Republicans, or the press would barbecue me like shish-ka-bubba on a grill. That July 29 Bob Novak column about how we used the IRS to go after our enemies gave me the willies, but it was totally ignored. Instead, the Washington Post quoted my ingenious put-down of Bush, without even noticing that I managed to blame his father for one of our biggest blunders while bragging about how restrained I have been.

        I said, “Now, you know, I didn't blame his father for Somalia when we had that awful day memorialized in Black Hawk Down. I didn't do that.”

        I can't believe I get away with stuff like that. I've still got the ju-ju.

        Well, most of the time. I asked Hillary to watch the dog this week, but she pulled her Senator voice on me and said, “The dog is your problem.”

        “Well,” I said, “it depends on your definition of "is.”' She didn't think it was a bit funny.

        Gotta go. So many bikini contests, so little time.

        E-mail pbronson@enquirer.com or call 768-8301.

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