Folks, I've got some crazy ideas running through my head this week. At least, they sound crazy, but I'm hoping you'll stay the course while I connect the dots, which is what we do nowadays with ideas on the ground, if you will: We connect the dots. The last thing we'd want to do is cut and run from an idea just because it's nutty. Why, there'd be no end to it! If we cut and run from every nutty idea that comes along, thousands will have died for nothing and might prevent thousands of others from dying for the same reason. On the ground, if you will. So, please, stay the course while I connect the dots. OK?

Frankly, I'm tired of all these tired media phrases ("on the ground," "if you will"), but frankly, also, that's where the craziest of my crazy ideas comes from this week -- constant repetition. I woke up the other morning and saw what must have been the 50th story about the death of TV producer Aaron Spelling, the 300th story about Al Gore's global-warming movie, the thousandth story about Hillary Clinton's presidential fundraisers, the millionth story, each, about Iraq, bird flu, hurricanes and the "war on terror," and finally -- I'm not making this up -- the billionth story about Angelina Jolie and her baby, Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt, born in the movie-star equivalent of a manger in Namibia and destined for a glory as yet unknown.

Which is why I decided that what America needs now is a monarchy, and that Angelina Jolie should be queen.

Sure, it sounds ridiculous, but hear me out. Like I said, I'm connecting the dots. Not only does America need a monarchy, but, in my opinion, it needs an absolute monarchy. Not one of those squishy "constitutional" numbers they have in England, but an honest-to-God, autocratic, crack-the-whip, Russian-style despotism, with all power invested in a single person, whose will is law and who is, in the end, indistinguishable from the State itself. We need someone who'll rule us by fiat, with an iron fist -- or, in Angelina's case, iron lips -- and who'll get America back on track as quick as you can say "Coochie-coo!"

I know, you'll tell me that we already have one of these people in the form of George W. Bush. But the problem with Bush is that he was elected -- or not -- to office, and we need to do away with elections altogether. First, they're fraudulent. Second, they cost a great deal of money, which could be better spent on diamond-studded pacifiers and gilded bassinets. Third, we need someone at the helm with genuine spiritual authority and a reputation for good works, such as Angelina has -- not some cross-eyed Baptist cracker with shoulder padding. And this person has to be a woman, because, let's face it, a woman as dominatrix is easier to sell, and we'll need some advertising to get the idea of absolute monarchy across to the four or five hundred Americans who still believe in representative democracy. Under Bush, Americans have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they don't care at all about the Constitution, but those few remaining holdouts are hard nuts to crack, and only a woman with iron lips can do it.

Lest you think I'm being entirely frivolous, let me say that I did consider other candidates for queen before I landed on Angelina. I thought first of Cicciolina, "Italy's most famous porn star," who recently offered herself to Osama bin Laden, saying, "I'm ready to make a deal. He can have me in exchange for an end to his tyranny. My breasts have only ever helped people, while bin Laden has killed thousands of innocent victims." But I had to disqualify Cicciolina because she's foreign-born, and besides, I don't think bin Laden is really a breast man.

Next, I thought of the new Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, the Rt. Rev. Katherine Jefferts Schori. She's already proven herself to be an amazing compromiser -- I mean, unifier -- over the gay marriage issue, but declared in her first sermon as Top Banana, "Our Mother Jesus gives birth to a new creation. And you and I are His children." So I had to disqualify her, too. I'm all for the Divine Feminine, but I'm more for the English language, and that sentence, I'm afraid, ain't grammatical.

Angelina it is. I rush to assure you that, with Angelina as queen, Brad Pitt would have no role to play apart from Prince Consort and farm stud. I suppose he might be allowed to help Angelina decide which impoverished war zone gets to cough up their next adopted baby -- Somalia? Darfur? South Central L.A.? -- but that's as far as it goes. Of course, as an absolute monarch, it would be Angelina's choice what to do with Brad in the end, but consorts have been throttled behind staircases before, and I'm not sure anyone would mind if Ocean's 13, 14 and 15 never got made.

One last thing: Someone will need to look out for Jennifer Aniston. First, she needs better parts in better movies. Second, absolute autocrats have been known to lose it sometimes, and we'll want to make sure that Angelina doesn't have Jennifer stuck in a tower or walled up or something. I happen to know -- because I was at the supermarket and saw the headlines -- that "It's Jen's Time For Happiness," and, if she can't be queen, the Jolie-Pitts could at least make her Duchess of Alimony.