As often happens with fever dreams, this one raced from one scene to another. The one recurring image was of George W. Bush holding a news conference at the White House (apparently my dream didn’t get the word that there will be no further news conferences).

“Who is your favorite political philosopher?” one of the reporters asked.

“Jesus Christ,” Bush responded.

Then my dream jumped to another room in the White House: Christie Todd Whitman was writing on a chalk board: “I will not try to protect the environment, I will not try to protect the environment, I will not try to protect…”

“Good job, Christie,” Dick Cheney said, patting her on the back. “Just 270 more times and you’ll be done.”

My dream was racing faster and faster: Now I was watching the 700 Club on television. Pat Robertson was explaining why it’s OK for China to impose compulsory abortions, but it’s not OK for women in the United States to have access to voluntary ones, at which point the ground opened up and swallowed him whole.

Back to the news conference:

Q. “Who is your favorite football star?”

A. “Jesus Christ.”

Next, I watched a news flash on television: Authorities had just found Jimmy Hoffa’s body. It was buried, along with 13,000 Florida presidential ballots, under Katherine Harris’s front porch.

Suddenly I jumped back in time to the inner sanctum of the Supreme Court. The justices were sitting around a table deciding who the next president would be. The Beatles’ Revolution played in the background.

Outside the conference room window, John Ashcroft, dressed in a Confederate uniform, rode by on a great white stallion.

Q. “Who is your favorite composer?”

A. “Jesus Christ.”

Jumping back again, I watched Bush give his belated victory speech in front of the Texas Legislature. As he walked to the podium, Don McLean started singing from American Pie — “The three men I admire most, the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost; they took the last train for the coast…”

Then all heads turned as Madonna broke in, singing her hip-hop version of American Pie. The gallery groaned as Jim Baker laughed maniacally.

Q. “Who is the Prime Minister of Great Britain?”

A. “Jesus Christ.”

Next, as my fever peaked at 113, I found myself at the annual banquet of the Federalist Society. Just as Clarence Thomas was beginning his keynote address, the ground started to shake and the authors of the Federalist Papers — James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay — climbed out of their graves and shouted in unison: “You’re a bunch of idiots. Please stop using our good names to front your organization.” Ken Starr rushed to the podium to announce that he had probable cause to believe all three Founding Fathers were guilty of an obstruction of justice.

But it wasn’t over yet.

Another news flash appeared: Bob Barr, frustrated by no longer having a real life Democratic president to kick around, had just announced his intention to commence impeachment proceedings against Josiah Bartlet.

Q. “Who prepared your income tax return?”

A. “Jesus Christ.”

The dream shifted again, this time to Charlton Heston giving a speech. He was holding a rifle in the air when suddenly he slipped on a banana peel and crashed to the ground. As they were carrying him off on a stretcher he kept repeating: “Fruits don’t kill people, people kill people.”

Finally, just before I woke up, the dream got really weird. I dreamed that Bush had announced he planned to renege on his campaign promise to reduce carbon dioxide emissions; he had decided to revoke a new health standard limiting arsenic in drinking water; and he intended to permit oil and gas drilling in the few remaining pristine wilderness areas. He also planned to end the American Bar Association’s traditional role in screening potential judicial appointees to open the way for extreme right wing appointments. And he was proposing a budget that would cut already limited federal resources for health care, the environment, childhood development and law enforcement in order to fund a huge tax cut which would go primarily to the very wealthy.

I woke up in a sweat, thanking God it was all just a dream.

That’s the thing about fever dreams; they cause you to imagine the most patently absurd things.

Steven C. Day is an attorney practicing in Wichita, Kan.

Related Sites
Visit the Washington Post’s special section on "The First 100 Days." The section includes news stories, an interactive calendar, transcripts of Bush’s remarks, and audio and video coverage.