GK: It's always a pleasure to welcome the President to our show. Mr. President--


TR (BUSH): Thank you so much and happy Halloween everybody. I've been going around trying to scare people and I do it about as well as anybody. And what I can't do, Mr. Cheney can. Anyway, I was giving a speech over here in Wisconsin the other day and talking about how John Kerry is planning to take small children away from their parents and raise them in long sheds and plant tiny electrodes in their brains that will make them secular humanists, and then I thought to myself--wait just a cotton-pickin minute--what am I saying? I like John Kerry. He's a good man. You got two good men running for President. That's my view. Choose whoever you want, you can't miss. So I decided to stop this divisive backbiting and all this attack politics and declare a truce.


GK: That's amazing, Mr. President--


TR (BUSH): And I called up Senator Kerry and asked him to come--


GK: And here he is right now. Senator Kerry.


TR (KERRY): I was goose hunting in southern Minnesota when I got the call and my heart was gladdened by the President's decision to cease hostilities and go into Election Day a peaceful and united nation.


TR (BUSH): (CHUCKLES) Didja get your goose? When Dick Cheney goes hunting, he goes to a goose farm where they keep 'em in pens. They sit in those camp chairs, you know, and just blow their heads off.


GK: An early cessation of campaigning by the two presidential candidates in the spirit of national unity--we have news being made today here in St. Paul.


TR (BUSH): And I want to apologize for calling you a dink and a wuss. I don't know how those words slipped out of my mouth, but I want you to know I'm sorry.


TR (KERRY): Thank you, Mr. President. And I want to apologize for my own harsh language in the past few days, when I said that you can put lipstick on a pig but he's still a pig.


TR (BUSH): Well, I'm glad to hear you didn't mean that. Just as I didn't mean it when I said that you were so indecisive, you didn't know whether to scratch your watch or wind your balls.


GK: Okay, gentlemen, I wonder if in the interest of national unity you wouldn't consider singing a duet. What do you say?


TR (BUSH): Well, I don't know any French songs. Or those druggy songs from the Sixties--


GK: How about you sing "America the Beautiful" together--just to show that, down deep, we really are one people, one nation--what do you say?


TR (KERRY): There isn't going to be line dancing, is there? And people with big hats?


GK: Mr. President, how about you lead it off?


TR (BUSH): O beautiful for patriots dream
To kick some A-rab butts.
Thine alabaster suburbs gleam
Thanks to my big tax cuts.
America America may God thy people bless
And let's roll back the inheritance tax and cut the IRS.


TR (KERRY): I would also like to apologize for my characterization of you as a man with the intelligence of a potted palm who couldn't pour water out of a boot if the instructions were printed on the heel. I regret that deeply.
(HE SINGS)
O beautiful for student loans,
For pensions and health care.
For better jobs and schools and loans
And men with better hair.
America America God shed his grace on thee
And please elect an intellect--in other words, send me.


GK: You know somehow I think we've lost the train of thought here. This was about coming together, right?


TR (KERRY): And I'm sorry that I said the difference between the Vietnam War and the Iraq War is that you had a plan to get out of the Vietnam war.
GK: Gentlemen--


TR (BUSH): I've got one more verse. Excuse me, I'm still the President.
O beautiful for pilgrim feet
Whose stern impassioned stress
Could kick the Democrat elite
Deep into the wilderness.
America America God shape thee to his plan
Bring freedom back to old Iraq and then let's do Iran.
GK: Okay, thank you both. That's all the time we have for today.
(BAND PLAYOFF, FAST "AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL)