White House officials confidently allowed Barney to participate in this post-O'Connor Court photo.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (TDT) President George W. Bush announced today that Barney Bush, the dark-haired Scottish Terrier currently serving in his second term as First Dog, will be the President's nominee to succeed departing justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court.

Special-interest groups from both the right and left, all of whom had been preparing for a contentious nomination battle, appeared initially taken aback by the announcement, but quickly responded with competing ad campaigns respectively praising or denouncing the President's selection. Talk radio hosts Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity both lavished praise on Barney, citing his lifelong dedication to President Bush. By the end of the day, Limbaugh's web site was touting record sales of T-shirts bearing the slogan, "Barney: He's no pussy." Liberal activist group Moveon.org, in contrast, had produced a web commercial decrying the selection of "Yet another Bush lap dog."

Senate Republicans, in a series of stirring, patriotically-themed speeches, defended the nomination, attesting that Barney had long been an important part of President Bush's decision-making team, particularly in areas of national security. Late last night, a group of Republican-leaning hackers uncovered some evidence supporting this contention: This question, from Barney's Question & Answer archive on the White House's web site, was found to have been deleted shortly after it was posted, immediately before the invasion of Iraq:

Democrats, however, contended that Barney, being a Scottish Terrier, had no legal experience, and had furthermore seemed opposed to some birth control methods, such as spaying and neutering. They were quickly gaveled into silence by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, however, who passed a resolution, along party lines, barring discussion of judicial nominees' political views. Senator Rick Santorum (R, PA) gave an impassioned speech in support of the measure, helpfully pointing out that the Constitution makes no requirements as to the species of Supreme Court justices. Several others, such as Senator Jeff Sessions (R, AL), lambasted Democratic opposition as "bigoted and mean-spirited. We can clearly see that the Senators from the other side of the aisle simply cannot accept a nominee from a species different from their own."

But other controversy looms: the New York Times' Judith Miller has uncovered alleged grand jury testimony by White House aide Karl Rove, apparently stating that Barney himself had been the initial White House official to contact conservative columnist Robert Novak, disclosing the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame. Congressional Democrats immediately expressed their outrage at this development.

Novak, however, denied this story, saying that an unscrupulous reporter had taken another story out of context. "Mr. Rove had mentioned, in double-super secret background, that Barney had once had an 'accident' in the Oval Office, and that the President had subsequently moved an area rug to conceal the stain. Somehow, this got twisted around in the press, to a headline that read, 'Barney was White House leaker, Bush cover-up alleged'. Really, journalists other than myself can be SO irresponsible at times," Novak fumed.

Sources on the Hill predict a heated partisan battle on the nomination. Overnight public opinion polling noted a split opinion among the American public, with 30% responding favorably to Barney's nomination (with almost 100% of these respondents identifying themselves as Republican voters), 30% opposed (almost entirely Democrats), with the remainder selecting either "Don't know" or "Don't care" options. Most Court watchers expect that eventually, Senate Democrats will cave in to pressure from right-wing media pundits, as they always do.

As for the First Dog himself, when asked how he expected the confirmation battle to be, he replied, "Ruff!" Washington insiders expect that sort of straight-talking attitude to take this terrier as far as his little legs can carry him.