Monica Goodling, an aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, is refusing to testify before Congress this week. She is invoking the Fifth Amendment on the grounds that the Senate Judiciary Committee "might ask her questions in a public forum under oath on a Thursday."

She also took the Sixth and Seventh Amendments in an abundance of caution.

Reluctant witnesses all over the country -- that is, members of the Bush Administration -- were inspired by Goodling's stance.

Sources now say Gonzales is thinking of taking the Third Amendment this coming Thursday, and Karl Rove has now agreed not to testify on the grounds that it may infuriate him.

Vice President Cheney is looking to invoke some part of the Constitution, but has been unable to find so far any part of the Constitution that means anything to him.

In fact, Republicans everywhere said that, if forced to testify before Congress, they will invoke the Prime Directive, saying that they are part of an advanced civilization and cannot help America's primitive society.

"I'm going to take the Eighteenth," said one man, immediately taking a long pull on a fifth of Irish whiskey.

Experts agreed with Goodling's invocation of the Fifth Amendment. "It could certainly incriminate her to testify," said legal scholar Chaimlich Manure. "Requiring a Republican to talk under oath is essentially an instant perjury trap."

Note: I have some remarks on Goodling's invocation of the Fifth over at Talking Points Memo (posing as the mysterious "TPM reader TB").