President Bush announced Wednesday that he was switching his allegiance on the issue of states’ rights. “Where, in the past, I have supported states’ rights, I was misguided,” said the President. “States must defer to federal authority on all issues, even on medicine and health care.”

The President stated that his new position would take effect first in the health care field. “I now support national health care,” he said. According to the White House, the new Republican position would be felt first among patients in California, Arizona, and other states that have allowed doctors to prescribe cannabis when it assists patients.

“States are not allowed to come up with innovative ways of helping patients live better lives,” said the president. “If the federal government doesn’t help them, there isn’t any point to anyone helping them.”

During the 2000 election, the President was a strong proponent of states’ rights. As a candidate he even voiced support for a state’s right to decide whether to allow medical use of marijuana. “I believe each state can choose that decision as they so choose,” the then-governor said.

Close aids noted that “Bush only recently realized that he was no longer a state governor. According to the Presidential Handbook, state governors are supposed to support states’ rights before becoming president, but oppose states’ rights afterwards. Unfortunately the President is a little behind in his reading, but he is catching up.”

According to political insiders, this was not an unexpected decision. Many lawmakers who make the move from the governor’s house to Washington undergo similar transformations. Current Attorney General John Ashcroft, once a strong supporter of states’ rights, now supports abolishing states altogether. “We don’t need ’em,” said the Attorney General at a recent meeting of the Siblings of the Confederate Revolution.

According to Ashcroft, “states’ rights is the single most dangerous movement facing the United States today. That’s why I diverted the Justice Department’s resources from tracking Al Qaeda and fighting terrorism, and focussed our efforts on fighting medical marijuana patients in states that allow them effective medicine. The fate of the nation depends on stopping these dangerous, sick people.”

Ashcroft also stated that he fully supported enforcing a national health care system, and that his anti-medical marijuana efforts were “just a part of ensuring that there are no more sick people in America.” Ashcroft said that when states support effective medicine for sick people, “this increases the survival rate for sick people, which means that sick people multiply. States’ rights just means more sick people in the United States.”