In what he called a "last ditch attempt to go the extra mile for peace," President Bush -- who never left his seat to meet with a single leader of any country opposed to war with Iraq -- flew to the Azores to meet only leaders of the meager coalition of countries he managed to scrabble together in support of a war -- Britain and Spain -- to make a couple of final plans about blowing off the U.N. vote Bush had earlier called for even while vowing to ignore the certain defeat of the measure.

Bush had earlier explained his pledge to call for a vote of the U.N. whatever the outcome, so that countries could "lay their cards on the table." Today he asked countries to "keep their cards close to their chests" so that he could try bluffing. "It's called Texas Hold'em," he joked, after which several White House press pool reporters rushed him, vowing to "put the poker metaphor to death forever."

A resolution was immediately introduced before the U.N. security council calling for the United States to immediately disarm itself of the use of harmful, confusing, and almost incoherent rhetoric. The resolution proposed several conditions, the first of which was for President Bush to "stop abusing the English language," for Donald Rumsfeld to give up sports metaphors, and for Ari Fleischer to "simply stop speaking." Mexico voted for the measure before realizing that it was the only country in the room.

Ari Fleischer described the meeting this way. "The President is determined that peace will break out in the Middle East, even if he has to force it to break out with really big tanks, huge numbers of helicopters, thousands of bombs, some aircraft carriers, and 250,000 men with guns and nightvision goggles."