McCain Pushes To Put Jesus On Dollar Bill

SALT LAKE CITY (CAP) - Republican Presidential candidate John McCain today called upon the United States to pay homage to its alleged Christian roots by replacing George Washington on the $1 bill with a more appropriate image, that of Jesus Christ.

The plea surprised some political analysts, who had assumed that McCain's reference to the U.S. as a 'Christian nation' in a recent Beliefnet interview was nothing more than pandering to the base.

"I dunno, maybe he did get loopy for the Lord somewhere out there on the Straight-Talk Express," one reporter told CAP News. "I had to cover that thing for two days in June, and I know I was praying to get the hell off."

Speaking at the annual Cattlemen for Christ convention in Salt Lake City, McCain said that his first act upon becoming President would be to sign into law a provision that would strip the $1 bill of the country's famous founder and replace it with "the nation's true spiritual founder, our Lord Jesus Christ."

"The beautiful thing about the $1 bill is that even the poor can afford them, just like they can afford the teachings of Jesus," McCain said to boisterous mooing. "Some think we should call it Messiah Money or Christ Cash, but I'm personally in favor of a shift in emphasis, from the one dollar bill to The One dollar bill."

While critics were quick to quietly question McCain's motives and the costs associated with such a massive overhaul of the nation's most popular currency bill, McCain's fellow Republican Presidential candidates were left scrambling to one-up the senator with their own monetary proposals.

The race's only Mormon, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, said he would put a smiling Jesus on multiple bills, noting, "I want to see the same thing when I open my wallet as I do when I open my bedroom door: many smiling faces."

For former New York mayor and terrorism-survivor Rudy Giuliani, Jesus would only adorn the $20 bill.

"What is 20? 9+11. Need I say more?" Giuliani said.

Bypassing Jesus entirely and heading right to the nation's first Republican saint, Fred Thompson would put a picture of Ronald Reagan on "some bill, I don't know, we're looking into it."