Does Lincoln-SpongeBob rumor hold water?

“Psychologist, therapist and former Kinsey sex researcher [C.A.] Tripp -- author of the 1975 classic ‘The Homosexual Matrix’ -- died in May 2003 at the age of 83, just after completing this riveting new study that makes a surprisingly compelling case for Lincoln’s bisexuality.”

Publisher’s Weekly on “The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln.”

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The following transcript was culled from a late night of channel surfing:

* Moderator: Welcome to community cable’s “Book Time.” Today’s guest is Dr. Fred Klomsky, an associate professor of biology and gender studies at Goddard University. Welcome, sir.

* Klomsky: Pleasure to be here.

* Mod: Your latest book, “Poor Porifera: A Love Story,” has quite frankly turned American history upside down. Tell us about it.

* Klom: It’s quite simple really. Abraham Lincoln had a passionate long-term extramarital affair with --

* Mod: (interrupting) Right, another man.

* Klom: No, no, no. That’s just absolute nonsense. No, the Great Emancipator was in love with a sponge. SpongeBob SquarePants.

* Mod: Why haven’t we heard about this before?

* Klom: It really was one of Washington’s best-kept secrets. Oh, certainly everybody within the Lincoln administration knew. His Cabinet, bodyguards. The press knew too. But in those days, there was an understanding that you didn’t write about a man and a talking sponge.

* Mod: What was their relationship like?

* Klom: Very nurturing, very caring, very loving. These were two individuals in a lot of pain. Lincoln had lost a couple children, his wife was mentally ill, and the country was literally coming apart.

* Mod: And SpongeBob?

* Klom: Well, he’d had a terrible breakup with Sandy Cheeks, you know his squirrel gal pal in Bikini Bottom.

* Mod: And that hurt the porous one?

* Klom: Very much so. He became deeply embittered and actually swore off all land mammals. Then, he met Abe at a Beltway cocktail party and his eyes began twirling like pinwheels.

* Mod: What else can you tell us about their relationship?

* Klom: I think it was just after Antietam, and Lincoln was down. Just down in the dumps. And SpongeBob sneaked into the Oval Office, put his arm around Abe’s shoulder and said: “If I ever find that Gen. Bobbie Lee, I’ll give him a right good ‘kar-a-tay’ chop!” Well, Lincoln began convulsing with laughter and SpongeBob did the same. They took three baths together that day.

* Mod: I see.

* Klom: Their relationship also certainly had an obsessive quality, a common trait in man-sponge relations. They would frequently exchange underwear, things like that. In fact, Abe was wearing SpongeBob’s boxers when he gave the Gettysburg Address. That’s why the speech was so brief!

Both laugh.

* Klom: Things weren’t perfect, of course. They had these terrific shouting matches. Oh, SpongeBob would accuse Honest Abe of treating him like a dirty dish rag and Abe would threaten to demonstrate how he got the nickname “The Illinois Rail Splitter.”

* Mod: How did you originally develop your thesis?

* Klom: I bought a sponge and got a penny back in change. I started thinking, Lincoln, sponge. Lincoln, sponge. It didn’t take long to connect the dots.

* Mod: The reaction to the book has been, well, in a word, unkind.

* Klom: Really? (Shifting uncomfortably in his chair.) Well, people don’t like to think. The truth hurts.

* Mod: How do you reconcile SpongeBob’s existence in the 21st century and Lincoln’s in the 19th? And what about the fact half of this particular couple is a fictional television character?

Silence.

* Klom: Oh, I see now -- gotcha journalism.

* Mod: I’m merely repeating what the critics have said.

* Klom: Time travel, Einstein. SpongeBob obviously had access to a time-travel machine. How else could he have gone back and forth, or didn’t you think of that?

* Mod: There is no Goddard University, is there?

* Klom: Not really.

* Mod: We’re out of time. Please join us next when author Dr. Spike Armstrong discusses his new book, “The Lincoln Bedroom: These Walls Can and Do Talk.”