BREAKING NEWS: In Ceremonial First Visit to White House, Obama Receives Bush's Deodorant-stained Bowling Shirt

BREAKING NEWS from OUR NATION'S CAPITAL...

WASHINGTON (7:00 PM EST) -- While First Lady Laura Bush took First Lady-in-waiting Michelle Obama on a tour of the White House Rose Garden Monday, President George W. Bush gave his successor his deodorant-stained bowling shirt as a token of congratulations.

"It's bad luck to wash your bowling shirt," a beaming President Bush told the press gallery Monday evening, "especially when you score more than 400 pins, which I think is the maximum bowling score. Huh huh, I said 'score.'"

Aides told reporters Bush was known to make up his own bowling scores because "he is the decider who decides such decisions."

The shirt, first woven in the textile mills of Paterson, N.J., and later patched up by Mrs. Bush at the Republican Wives' Cooking and Cleaning Expo in Fredericksburg, Va., contains a cursive "Dub-ya" inscription on the shirt's left breast.

White House staff said the president wore the shirt during frequent trips to the White House's private bowling alley. The alley hosts glow-in-the-dark Cosmic Bowling for the public on Friday nights, although the tradition has been suspended to make way for the insertion of a roller skating rink and a repaired hot dog rotisserie, which broke when Karl Rove had to live in the White House for two weeks because his basement flooded out.

The deodorant stains are historic in themselves; they first originated when Bush wore the shirt to intense, high-level negotiations in the Middle East peace process. Experts said the stain's source is likely Speed Stick gel.

"I could smell him from Gaza City," said Palestinian Authority envoy Nasser Yarafat, who attended the negotiations.

President-elect Obama was visibly pleased by Bush's gesture, saying he plans to wear the jersey, made of the finest New Jersey nylon and held together by hand-crafted Malaysian buttonry, on Inauguration Day and will offer each American family two pitchers of Bud Light, an extra-large pepperoni pizza and 500 game tokens in exchange for their public service.