Color my neck red, but was I the only one flabbergasted to see President Bush at his Texas ranch holding hands with Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia?

No wonder his poll numbers are tanking. In Texas, "real men" hold hands only in football huddles, if ever. Not to mention that to the GOP "base," the United States is at war with all A-Rabs. That's how they were tricked into thinking that Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were the same guy.

Actually, many newspapers ignored the photos. Editors saw no news value in Bush's kissing an Arab potentate's cheek. Even The New York Times stipulated that "in the Arab world, affection among men is common, and without sexual connotation." Glad to have that straight. Instead, such gestures convey personal regard and "equality in status." The photo op was staged more for the prince's subjects than for Bush's constituents.

Even so, what were Bush's handlers thinking? By adopting Arab customs in Texas, didn't he risk looking like Abdullah's humble servant? With gasoline nearing $3 per gallon and Saudi royals wallowing in cash up to their perfumed beards, solidarity with a corrupt dictatorship might not send the right message. Not with Americans fighting to bring democracy to neighboring Iraq and 57 percent of voters in a recent CNN/USA Today poll saying it's not worth the sacrifice.

But there I go again, satirizing the Bush cult of personality. That guarantees a barrage of communications from strangers impugning my motives and declaring me psychologically unhinged. Only bitter, unhappy people fail to apprehend Bush's greatness. I even heard from a female friend chastising me for slipping Bush jokes into a non-political column. I had to check the mirror to be sure a time warp hadn't carried me back to junior high. (Nope. White hair, brown teeth. Still 2005.)

Not that I'm whining. To quote our president: "Bring it on." It's always astonishing to observe the logical contortions of people determined to see greatness in this paradoxically smug, frightened little man. Here's a guy who can't face a "town hall" meeting on Social Security without a screened audience, scripted questions and the Secret Service escorting suspected Democrats to the exits, and he's a hero?

Even I took comfort, however, in first lady Laura Bush's knockout comedy routine at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner. Admittedly, I'm kind of sweet on Laura. She talks just like my sainted wife, and there's a faint resemblance. (Very faint, dear. Please don't shoot.) The subtext of her jokes, though, got too close to the bone for some of her husband's supporters.

"How many scores did she settle--with her own side?" wondered the American Spectator. "She mocked Dick Cheney's tricky health. She depicted Mrs. Cheney as a male strip club tipper. She described the three architects of the Iraq war as butchers and brutes. This is what passes for humor while we still have soldiers dying in Iraq? Her clincher of a laugh line--'George, if you really want to end tyranny in the world, you're going to have to stay up later'--reduced her husband's singular goal to nothingness."

Oh, come on. So she laughed about being a "Desperate Housewife." Does anybody really think she and Lynne Cheney went to see the Chippendales? Besides, the jokes that really hit home were the ones about Bush family values.

"So many mothers today are just not involved in their children's lives," she said. "Not a problem with Barbara Bush. People often wonder what my mother-in-law's really like. People think she's a sweet, grandmotherly, Aunt Bea type. She's actually more like, mmm--(pause) Don Corleone."

That drew a favorable response from Kitty Kelley, whose recent book "The Family" angered Bush supporters.

"I've described the Bushes as a cross between 'The Sopranos' and 'The Donna Reed Show,'" she said. "Laura described her mother-in-law as Don Corleone. I see Barbara Bush more as Tony Soprano."

Hence the handholding with Prince Abdullah: The Bush family fortune depends as much on Saudi oil as Tony Soprano's does on garbage trucks.

Anyhow, to me, the biggest laugh getter was the one about the iconic ranch Bush acquired in 1999.

"George didn't know much about ranches when we bought the place," said Laura, a native Texan. "Andover and Yale don't have a real strong ranching program. But I'm proud of George. He's learned a lot about ranching since that first year when he tried to milk the horse. What's worse, it was a male horse."

No, people, it wasn't a masturbation joke. One pull and you'd get kicked in the head, which would explain a lot. It was a golf-cart cowboy joke. And if you bought the illusion of Cowboy W., then the joke's on you.

Meanwhile, the best thing I can say about Bush is that he was laughing, too.

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette columnist Gene Lyons is a national magazine award winner and co-author of "The Hunting of the President" (St. Martin's Press, 2000). You can e-mail Lyons at genelyons2@sbcglobal.net.