"Listen, I got a problem here. This thing is getting weird. I mean, the reporters won't get off the Karl Rove-Valerie Plame story. They're like rabid wolverines and I'm the wounded bunny. I did the whole "can't comment on an ongoing criminal investigation" deal like we agreed. And kept doing it. Christ, I must have said it maybe 80 times and they wouldn't stop. The hell is that? I thought we had a deal with these guys. Even Carl Cameron from Fox News! You should have seen him: "Does the President still have confidence in Rove?" I wanted to slap that weasel smile right off his smug mug. Some dame even asked "who is Karl Rove" and I totally blanked and launched back into "ongoing criminal investigation" looking like a complete idiot, which I know is what you pay me to do, but holy crap, they just wouldn't lay off. Where's Jeff Gannon when we need him?

"Anyhow, boss: please, please, please tell me we're not going to run that stupid "he never mentioned her name" defense. I mean, c'mon. He did say Joe Wilson's WIFE worked for the CIA. Which unless the guy is the King of Bahrain or an Elder in the Mormon Church or an Eskimo or something sounds pretty definitive even to me. And unh, if you do talk to Mr. Rove about this, could you leave my name out of it? To be honest, the guy kind of gives me the heebie jeebies. Remember that time I spilled coffee on his lap, and everyone laughed? Later on he pushed me into my office and started screaming and all the doors and windows shut on their own and the air got dense and I swear his eyes turned all red and stuff and a bunch of papers on a chair burst into flames. They were just a pile of old Posts so it was no big deal, but still. "And I've been asking around, and I'm not the only one he creeps out. Cheney's chief of staff's head intern told my intern that she walked in on the Vice President and Mr. Rove in that big marble bathroom upstairs dancing around waving dead chicken carcasses and using the decapitated heads as finger puppets. And now she's got warts on her eyes, and I know you don't want to know anything unless you need to know, but this is stuff I think you need to know.

"If you ask me, I think we ought to go right back to good old Plan A where we criticize the criticizers. Get McConnell or one of the boys to express their patriotic outrage and say how picking on Karl Rove is endangering our troops and well, you know the routine. That's it, I guess. You know me, I'll do whatever's good for the team. Except for that hot tub thing with Robert Novack. But you were just kidding around, right? Ulp, here comes Matt Cooper. Got to run."

Will Durst truly hopes the President was just kidding about the hot tub thing with Robert Novack.

Don't forget to catch Durst at the DC Improv tonight through Sunday and all next week at the Improv at Harrah's in Las Vegas.