Out of sheer desperation, President Bush nominated a computer as his 17th and most recent candidate to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

With only two months left in his second term, it's now or never for a Bush nominee to make it onto the highest court in the land.

Harriet Miers, the President's first and now long forgotten nominee, drew the wrath of the President's own party when it was discovered that she just wasn't conservative enough. She was not, for example, an Evangelical Born-Again Pentecostal Witness, did not favor immediate, simultaneous attacks of Iran, Syria, Uzbekiturkizakistan, and the poor Wahhabi neighborhood of En'ar ji Bahr on the Saudi Arabian coast, and was scandalized by charges that she used Hollywood left-winger Paul Newman's salad dressing, Newman's Own, on her artichoke salads.

As few observers remember now, Judge Samuel Alito, the President's second nominee, was deemed by the Democratic Diversity Coalition of the Feminist Sisterhood and MoveOn Activists to be too darned white, too male, and too Catholic. Both Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton blasted him for not being simple ordinary middleclass mainstream folks like themselves.

Rumors about selecting the perfect compromise candidate, a libertarian judge from California, resulted in a surge of bipartisanism not seen on the Hill since last week when the Motherhood Apple Pie Aunt Bee Omnibus Spending Bill passed unanimously, guaranteeing that every congressional district in the country got either a new museum (Cornstarch Museum, Museum of Cobblestones That Look Like the Virgin Mary, Museum of Early Twenty-First Century Museums), new highways (Road to Ruin, Speedtrap Boulevard) or a war memorial (Boston Red Sox Fans Riot Control SWAT Officers Monument, Tableaux of KIA Meter Maids, Statue of the Unknown Drug Warrior).

Spooked Senior Senile Senators from both parties hastily convened what Capitol crony rumormongers referred to as The Ad Hoc Clandestine Committee to Save Our Seats and unofficially leaked comments to the press.

"A libertarian?" one Senior Senile Senator leaked on condition that his senility not be disclosed. "Is the President mad? Everyone on the Hill knows that 95% of everything the federal government does is unconstitutional. Can you imagine what would happen if a libertarian was allowed to run amok in the Supreme Court? Why, he'd start demanding that we actually abide by our oaths of office and legislate within the framework of the Constitution. We'd all have to go back home and get one of those ... what do they call it when someone does something productive in exchange for money? Oh yes, we'd all have to get jobs!"

"I can't be a Wal-Mart greeter," another Senior Senile Senator leaked on condition that his leaking not be disclosed. "My constituents are mostly young socialist Smart Growth airheads who despise Wal-Mart, so publicly, of course, I'm pro Mom and Pop, although my wife, my three daughters and all the grandkids shop at Wal-Mart. They really do have great prices and … oh, excuse me, I seem to be leaking again …"

The President quickly distanced himself from the alleged libertarian nominee while eating artichoke salad. "Libertarian? Who said libertarian? I never said libertarian. That was one of Chaney's people who said libertarian. If I find out who's been throwing that libertarian talk around I'll demand his immediate resignation. Hmmm, this artichoke salad is leaking leeks."

Few people inside or outside the Beltway seem to remember any of the other named and then hastily withdrawn nominees. There was the small claims court paralegal from Menominee Falls, Wisconsin, the former assistant aid to the part-time Washington page, and the President's close personal confidant and pool boy, which produced charges of nepotism. Generally, all of these nominees were charged with being either too conservative or too liberal, over or under qualified, too ethnic or not ethnic enough, and the wrong or indeterminate gender.

So far, neither party has officially commented on the computer nomination announcement. Washington insiders claim that Senior Senile Leaders of both parties are huddled behind their respective closed doors, attempting to conjure up official positions on the issue. Democrats, it's whispered, are working on habitual "class warfare" strategies, while Republicans are secretly begging for instant results from the Limbaugh-Hannity-O'Reilly Combined Talkshow Opinion Poll.

Some political speculators claim that confirmation hearings will center on the issue of who will be allowed to program the computer. Experts will likely be called to testify to the Republican Senior Senile Senators that there is a difference between algorithms and Al Gore-isms.

The nation eagerly awaits its leaders' decision.