"I've seen Mr. President on and off for years," confirms Tobias Johnson, a White House butler since the Kennedy administration. "He likes to make his presence known, but politely. A quiet cough or tap on your shoulder if you aren't looking. But no rattling chains and unearthly moanings or such. Mr. Lincoln is as much a gentleman in death as I've heard he was in life."

Although Johnson says that other famous ghosts haunt the presidential residence, he admits to Lincoln being his favorite. And he is not alone. If history is to be believed, Lincoln's ghost has been an elder statesman to several former presidents, from Grant to Clinton. A notable exception was Richard Nixon, who ordered Lincoln to "quit messing up my damned recording devices."

The new Bush administration, however, won't have a choice whether to accept the wise council of the long dead Lincoln. According to psychic gossip columnist Slander VanHorne, Honest Abe considers the new president an idiot - and he's moving out.

"President Lincoln was not only known as the great emancipator," said VanHorne in a telephone interview late Sunday, "but as one of the greatest orators in American history. Listening to President Bush attempting to speak the english language is just plain torture on the old spirit. He can't take it anymore."

Bush dismissed such tales, saying that ghosts do not exist. But if they did, the president was sure that Lincoln would be proud to continue living in the White House with him.

"He was a great man, who fought bravely against the Chinese in the Civil War," Bush said at a Monday morning ceremony honoring Lincoln's birthday. "He also invented the logs that made houses for little peoples everywhere. In many ways, I am very much like him. We're both Republicans. We're both uniters, not dividers. And I'm sure history will remember me as a great constipator too."