Where, I wonder now, was Warren Beatty on May 3rd, 1952? Was the 15-year-old Virginia high school kid parked on a suburban road in his daddy's Chevy, groping some bleached-blonde cheerleader through her angora? Or was he focused on grander pursuits, in the history section of the Arlington Public Library, amid the Presidents and Great Men, groping some bleached-blonde cheerleader through her angora?

I reflect on the amazing path that has brought him here, to the highest office in the land, and I reflect on the bizarre coincidences that have kept me on the periphery of his life all these years. I was born in September 1938 in Virginia to a burlesque house chorus girl and a successful importer of pin-cushion art, and as a freshman at Arlington High School I admired from a distance this dynamic young man that everyone called "Warr". He was a man we all knew had a future, a man who cared deeply about freedom and equality for the working class, and a man who had sex with everything in a skirt. God, I admired him.

I would again encounter "Warr" on the set of "The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis", where he was playing the role of Milton, and I was stalking Tuesday Weld. Warr looked so natural in that setting that I had no doubt that he would soon be a star. But did I imagine that he would one day ascend to the Presidency, swept in on an all-Hollywood ticket in that extraordinary turn of the millennium Year of the Celebrity?

On this particular day, Warr may have been wishing that he had never traded in that office at Twentieth Century Fox for the more hooker-free (since Clinton left, anyway) digs at the White House. This was a day of crisis, and as I stepped into the Oval Office in my role as Official Biographer, President Beatty was looking haggard. As I examined his lined face, I thought back to his role as the hairdresser in Shampoo . . . Beatty lives life much like a hairdresser: putting up a cheerful facade, but always aware of the sharp instruments with which he has been entrusted. And looking down women's cleavage, too. We shouldn't forget that.

"Is Vice President Shepherd here yet?" the President asked tensely of the secretary leading me into the room. The secretary just shook her head. Cybill Shepherd's year 2000 run at the Presidency, on a platform of reproductive rights and hair, hadn't garnered the votes to go all the way, but it had created enough of a groundswell for Beatty to take her on as a running mate, thus tying up the blonde vote. It had been enough to put him over the top, and he hadn't forgotten it.

Vice President Shepherd had proven to be a valuable partner over the past two years, and Beatty was desperately in need of her unflappability in this time of crisis. The report from the National Security Agency had come in just 15 minutes ago. Russian President Boris Yeltsin's dialysis machine, supercharged by the most brilliant scientific minds in Eastern Europe to accommodate the prodigious amount of vodka flowing through his kidneys, had finally become so sophisticated that it had achieved self-awareness, hijacked a Russian Missile Defense mainframe, and was threatening a tactical strike against targets in the U.S. The world was on the brink of war.

"I'm sorry I'm late," Vice President Shepherd uttered breathlessly as she strode into the room. "There was an accessories sale at Barney's, and you know how those can be: claw, claw, claw, at least until the Secret Service started flashing their weapons."

"My Gosh," the President exclaimed, "was anyone hurt?"

"I don't know, maybe, there were some shots fired, but I got this fabulous Jean-Paul Gaultier handbag for a steal. Would you look at this?"

"Wow, that's fantastic," Beatty complimented her as he kissed her full on the mouth, a form of Presidential greeting that hadn't been seen since the Harding administration, and that I was still having some trouble adjusting to.

"So what's the big crisis?" Vice President Shepherd asked, taking a chair in front of the President's desk and crossing her shapely legs. (There had been fit Vice Presidents before, and Agnew waxed, but none had gams like this one.)

"Yeltsin's dialysis machine has hacked into the Russian Missile Defense and is threatening war. Here's a scenario the DIA drew up for this sort of eventuality during the Cold War--" Beatty passed her a manila folder marked CLASSIFIED. "It assumes a heart-lung machine," he continued, "but the analysts tell us the expected outcome's the same."

"Total war?" the Vice President asked.

President Beatty looked grim. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that," he answered.

The President's cabinet was meeting in 5 minutes in the Situation Room, and he made a move to dismiss me.

"But Mr. President," I told him, "I should be there." He was about to shake his head, but I looked him firmly in the eye. "Mr. President," I said. "For the sake of history."

"Kerry," President Beatty decided, "you're right as always."

The mood in the situation room was tense. Beatty got right to the point. "So I assume you've all been briefed. What we need to do now is craft a response. Secretary of State Schwarzenegger--what word from the Russians?"

"Ayff been on de phone witt de Russians for de past ow-er, end dey are totally opposed to meeting eny of de machine's duhmands," Schwarzenegger said, as the rest of the cabinet listened into their headphones for the English translation.

"I'm sorry," the Vice President interrupted, "but I lost those papers you gave me on the elevator ride down here . . . what were the demands again?"

"The dialysis machine," the President told her, "is demanding that it be unhooked from the Russian President so that it can live autonomously. The problem is that if that's done, Yeltsin will almost certainly die."

"Eet's a diplomatic nay-etmare!"

"Can't the Russians just buy him another dialysis machine?" Vice President Shepherd wanted to know.

Secretary of the Treasury Donald Trump piped in for the first time: "The Russians don't have the capital to get the First Daughter's babushka trimmed, let alone buy a piece of hardware like that. But we can buy him a new dialysis machine. Hell, I'll buy him a new dialysis machine if it means it'll keep the nukes from raining down on New York--which I now own in full, by the way, as soon as you sign that bill Speaker DeNiro is railroading through Congress."

"Yo, it's not that simple," Secretary of Energy L.L. Cool J. interjected. "That dialysis machine is like, supercharged, you know what I'm saying? It's got a whole hydroelectric plant just to itself. There's no other dialysis machine like it, probably."

"Is that true?" the President asked Surgeon General George Clooney.

"Well," Clooney responded, "I'm not actually a doctor, although I played one on TV, and now advise 260 million Americans on their personal health, which is going much better since I got that whole carbon monoxide/carbon dioxide confusion sorted out, but I can assure you now that piping car exhaust into your house will not make your plants grow faster . . . What was the question?"

"The dialysis machine?"

"Oh, right. Yes, I'd say it's true that there are no other dialysis machines like it."

"Then it seems we're left with two choices," President Beatty summed up, "either convince Yeltsin to grant autonomy to the breakaway dialysis machine voluntarily, or have a full scale nuclear war."

"Excuse me Mr. President, but there may be another option." All eyes turned towards the tall man squinting back at them, Secretary of Defense Steven Seagal. He continued: "There's a Russian agent, former KGB, high up inside the Kremlin. I can't give you his name, but I know this man, I've fought this man, and he may just be able to arrange shutting off the dialysis machine for us."

"But then the President would die," President Beatty pointed out.

"I'm not saying it's not messy. But it could look like an accident, a lot of wires around those machines, someone accidentally trips, and oops, a hair dryer or a dialysis machine gets unplugged. I think it's something we have to consider."

"But that's virtually assassination. There are legal issues . . . Attorney General Smits, what are we looking at here?"

Attorney General James "Jimmy" Smits leaned back in his chair and brought his fingers together in a thoughtful triangle. "Do you want the legalistic, conservative 'L.A. Law' answer or the ass-kicking, billy-club-beating 'NYPD Blue' answer? Or maybe the heart-patient, empathetic 'NYPD Blue' answer for that matter?"

"I want to know if we could go to jail."

"Yes, but it would be a minimum-security celebrity jail."

"Would I have to shower with other men?" Secretary Trump asked.

"Donald, is that all you think about?" the President demanded, exasperated, "You asked that during the budget debate, too."

Trump blushed.

The President looked around at his cabinet. "So any final thoughts?" He looked at each member in turn. Secretary of Housing Bob Villa just shook his head. Secretary of Health Richard Simmons hadn't been paying attention since that all-male shower comment. Secretary of Education Tinky-Winky giggled and fell down.

"So that's it, then," President Beatty said definitively. "It looks like it's war. I have a few words I've been saving up for an event like this. I hope we can all find strength in them. They're not really a prayer so much as a rap. L.L., could I get a beat?"

The Secretary of Energy put his hands over his mouth and did a human beat box in the old-school style as President Beatty began his rap: "A lot of bad things, happening today/could destroy all life in the U.S.A.--"

Secretary Trump leaned over and whispered to Secretary Schwarzenegger: "Is there anything you could do to get those bombs here a little faster?"

"Ah'll call de Kremlin."

"Thanks. Tell 'em there's a room full of decadent capitalists that need to be put out of their misery . . ."

As President Beatty's inspiring words continued--"But it'll make me feel better before I go/To remember the night I plugged Jackie O."--the cabinet fell into a respectful silence. Some historians have claimed that the room was quiet because everyone had left. But I was there, and can tell you: Bob Villa stayed through the whole thing, and later claimed it was the most patriotic rap he had ever heard.

I won't bore you with the details of the remarkable turn of events that led to a resolution of this terrible crisis, or how United Nations Secretary General Laetitia Casta came to be involved, but everything worked out fine, which is why we're all here today.

History may judge President Beatty as a hero, or a villain; as a loving family man, or as a lech. But as a man who has known him these 60-odd years, and has seen him in the most trying of crises, I can tell you: he can lead like Churchill, inspire like Kennedy, and rap like Master P. It could be years before there's another like him, and decades before I get the ringing out of my ears.

When Warren Beatty looks in the mirror, what does he see? What does the mirror see? If it's the mirror on the ceiling of the White House Master Bedroom, it probably sees the bottoms of Annette Bening's feet. But let's assume it's another mirror--a mirror in a part of the White House where there's no sex . . . the press room let's say. During a press conference, just to be sure. Then, I think, the mirror would see an American--like you or me in many ways, but with those weird lips. But more importantly, an American who hasn't just banged every starlet in Hollywood (and a few veteran hags to boot), but has, in a way, made love to all Americans. His caring has caressed us, his words have penetrated us, his leadership has dripped down our thighs.

Our values are the babies he's birthed, and as they emerge screaming into the world, coated in mucous and amniotic goo, what American can't hear the words of our leader, echoing through the metaphorical delivery room of civil society, his voice strong and clear: "Give him a slap on the ass for me," he'd say.

"Give him a slap on the ass for me."