You have expressed far more eloquently that which I have been attempting to synthesize for weeks, now. Thank you.

The classic "end to nightmare of peace and posterity" satire actually seems understated.

My merciful heavens, Teresa, what a lot of work that was!

Does that mean he will run a soap kitchen for the poor?

I think, for me, the most depressing one was by a long shot Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over' in that it very neatly laid out all the worst abuses of this presidency (if in rather non-specific terms) from his aggression to ridiculous financial regulatory policy just days before he took office.

The single item I'm proudest of is "DNA Evidence Frees Man From Zoo." It kept tugging at the hem of my brain for about thirty-six hours, until I finally realized that it was probably intended as a comment on our illegally held prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. It's known that some of them did nothing more than happen along at the wrong moment; and we don't think it's our responsibility to either prove that they are what we say they are, or let them go.

I could be wrong. Until I get over being saturated with Onion-ness, that thought will continue to appear in my head as an Onion headline: Area Woman Reads Too Much Meaning Into Humorous Article.

I just celebrated my birthday for the first time since 2001 this past fall.

Poor Onion. I suspect it's going to have to work a little harder to find similar elements of the Obama Administration to satirize.

I think that's a typo. It should read "All that remains now is for Bush to spend the rest of his life doing good works in a penitentiary."

And I wonder what's the meaning of the series of news briefs starting from November 12, 2008 where Bush suffers progressively more gruesome wounds. I wonder if they'll make a final article today

Just when you thought he had absolutely nothing in common with Gregor Vorbarra...

September 26, 2001: God Angrily Clarifies ‘Don’t Kill’ Rule.

It made me weep just a little inside reading it.

Mac

Wasn't that a Transmetropolitan story?

And we wind up doing both.

SO and I sometimes picture ourselves forty years from now, doddering out to our rocking chair to contribute to a Studs Terkel-type oral history, I Lived Through The Bush Disaster, and I always imagine us trying to explain it.

"At first, there was this strong sense of unreality, and then we realized they meant it..."

I go through the same thing. I don't have children, but I'm already working on the explanatory speeches I'll have to deliver when I inevitably dissolve into tears of relief while watching Bush and Cheney's very public funerals.

You mean apart from being the autocratic heir of a family of bloodthirsty lunatics?

He seems to be trying to pitch some sort of "historical long view" of his works. I think he's finally figured out that hundreds of millions of people hate his guts, and it bothers him in a vague sort of way. So he give a speech to remind us all of his "good intentions". Road-to-hell toll-road still open, you pay for your own seat in the handbasket.

Privileged Children Of Millionaires Square Off On World Stage

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28092

Just so you know, expect a large group of first-time readers - you've been added to Gorilla Mask for today's web finds.

(and thanks for the effort in compiling this!)

In his final days, Bush did seem to become aware that he'd leave some sort of legacy. Perhaps he'll eventually realize what he has wrought, and make amends. I mean, by virtue of his reputation (or perhaps lack thereof) as a speaker, it's hard to see him doing the lecturing tour. It's even harder to see him as a diplomat or ambassador of the American people.

What else do ex-presidents do?

...For many Bush appointees, this is the first time they've been on the job market for years, if not decades. Many came to Washington during the 1990s to take jobs in the Republican-controlled Congress, only to move into the administration after Bush's 2000 election.

"These are people who haven't put together a résumé in 20 years," said Steve Gunderson, a former Republican congressman who is president of the Council on Foundations. He has been reviewing résumés of those seeking jobs in the nonprofit sector. "It's a first for them in developing résumés, applying for open and competitive jobs, and trying to figure out where their skills might work best."

At the end of the article, one Republican who got out in time is quoted thusly: "The market is so poor...that some senior GOP congressional aides are fighting over taking a pay cut from $130,000 to $140,000 to just $60,000 to $70,000."

I may be a bad, mean person, but I cannot find it in my heart to feel sorry for them.

P J Evans@38: Isn't Bush already an alcoholic?

Anyway, I remember listening to an NPR report where Bush supporters hope that his presidency will look better in retrospect (cf. Truman). Obviously, it's too early to know how history will eventually judge him. However, right now, the "he played the horrible cards he was dealt as well as anyone could have" argument isn't working for me.

The bar is set pretty high with Carter's support of Habitat For Humanity and Bush Sr. and Clinton's efforts for the Tsunami Relief Fund.

Perhaps Dubya could form a Fratboy Hazing Legal Defense Fund....

Also, I am pretty sure the "Long National Nightmare of Peace and Prosperity" article proves that the Onion has a time machine.

That's a pretty low bar—Truman isn't in it. More like Nixon, but I'm not sure even Nixon is low enough to compete for unimpressive rehabilitation.

Twelve or thirteen hours to go, right?

Would that he'd gotten his wish. Yes, it'd be bad for baseball, but we can clean that up more easily than the whole country.

Unfortunately, still 23 hours to the beginning of the swearing-in ceremony.

I think you must be calculating the time difference in the wrong direction; here in Eastern Standard Time, the Bush administration has just a bit over 22 hours left.

As Avram Grumer pointed out a couple of days ago, that's still enough time to completely screw up one more thing!

(I'm betting on U.S. To Send 30,000 Mall Security Guards To Iraq. After all, "Mall Ninja" sums up the performance, responsibility, discipline etc. of most of those Private Security Goons pretty well.)

Is anyone else astonished that there's been no pardon confetti yet?

Of course, I'll probably try to keep GYWO out of reach until they're a little older, because of the language. But then I'll explain that yes, it really did make us want to curse that much. God forbid their history teachers ask them to interview us on tape about the Bush administration. Discussing the Bush administration practically requires some F-bombs. (More likely they'll be asked to interview us about where we were on 9/11. That story I can tell without using F-bombs.)

One of wife Amy's favorite sayings is that she learned to curse during the Nixon trials. Our daughter's 9, and I'd say she's been getting a good grounding in classic expletives the past few years.

One of the common arguments against the possibility of time-travel is, "Where are all the time-travelers from the future?" That article -- plus the Fuck Everything, We're Doing Five Blades -- is what cemented my belief that they're writers for The Onion.

My favorite was still "Al Gore Places Infant Son In Rocket To Escape Dying Planet".

The WaPo reports that "Bush's Post-Presidency to Include More Than a Library," from where Jeb&AlltheCriminalCronies can continue their terrorism on this nation and the world, while also from where they can continue to spew and disseminate their lies and revisionist history.

This ilk is the definition of "Never surrender, never give up." And now they can't even get high-paying to distract them with buying stuff. Hope Obama will get this sooner rather than later.

Love, C.

I miss a nation where a lie about a blow job represented a major betrayal of trust between a President and the nation.

Now it's all excessive assumption of executive power, torture, violation of Geneva conventions, and helplessness in the face of economic collapse. Sex scandals seem so sweet and simple by comparison.

I'll get the fuck over Bush when we have that kind of innocence back.

You mean, with a massive budget surplus, a decent economy (with jobs), and no ongoing wars?....

Over George W. Bush?

I'll never get over George W. Bush!

You just reminded me I haven't watched Galaxy Quest for quite some time, by Grabtha's Hammer!

You all have apparently forgotten the pathetic shape that slimy bastard Clinton left America in.

How could we, given that it's so well described in the best-known ones of the articles on that list? (The "long national nightmare" article, in case you really don't get it.)

I assume you're referring to Jimmy Carter. But for Bush to reach that level of stellar ex-presidency, he would have had to have at least meant well and had the self awareness to acknowledge that he failed to reach the expected level of greatness, or even competency. Bush is a legend in his own mind and you can tell he thinks very highly of himself every time he opens his crooked little mouth.

The thing that pisses me off more then anything else Bush has done, is his smug sense of self righteousness. His insistence that we peons are simply to ignorant (i.e. poor) to get how great a man he really is and so it's all for the smarter, richer better people of the future to decide (So long as they are GOP operatives).

If only one person was allowed to write the historical account of the Bush years that would be saved for the ages, I'd like it to be a black woman from New Orleans.

Jnthn drvb is doing us an important service—the tantrums of the vanquished remind us that they're still out there.

He probably thinks he actually owned the Rangers - he was really a minority shareholder. Basically he was a name and a face for them to use to get more investors.

I want him and Cheney - especially Cheney - to end up in a circle of Hell below Benedict Arnold, so Arnold can sh*t on them.

Charlie Stross, #43: "Twelve or thirteen hours to go, right?"

I think you must be calculating the time difference in the wrong direction; here in Eastern Standard Time, the Bush administration has just a bit over 22 hours left.

Reflexive nitpickers make up 57% of Charlie Stross's readership.

As Avram Grumer pointed out a couple of days ago, that's still enough time to completely screw up one more thing!

I wonder whether the networks have graphics prepared for this eventuality. Spinning chrome logos, against a desaturated montage of artillery fire and zooming aircraft: FINAL FIASCO: THE BUSH LEGACY...

We've been having far-right wingnuts and thugs tell us to "get over it" for at least a decade now. What they mean is that they want us to join them in pretending that what their favored officials do is legal; that their arguments make sense and are backed up by facts; that the rest of the world can't tell what they're doing; and that their policies and initiatives work. While we're at it, they'd like us to pretend that they come off from these interactions looking intelligent; and they'd really like us to stop mentioning that the Bush administration's policies have screwed them over, too.

Wingnuttia has to label Bill Clinton a monster because otherwise they'd be tempted to notice that the real reason their leaders went after him wasn't his morals -- most of them had grimier personal lives than Clinton -- but because they refused to accept that being legally elected by a majority of the voters meant he got to be president. What they did wasn't so much an attempted impeachment as an attempted coup.

If the wingnuts actually let that thought cross their minds, next thing you know they'd be reflecting that they're all little guys, just like the rest of us, and that powerful officials who don't want to count the votes and accept the results are by definition not their friends.

One of the many reasons I love The Onion is that it notices that too: this country is full of hard-pressed hard-working little guys who vote Republican. They've lost their pensions and their 401(k) plans (if they had them to start with), their jobs have gone overseas, they're struggling to keep up with their mortgages, and they can't even get out and start over by declaring bankruptcy -- but they still keep voting Republican.

Funny you should say that. When I got money out the ATM in the office's lobby today, the security guard asked why I needed money. "To spend it", I said. "Why?" he said. "Tomorrow your people will start takingmoney away from the Rich." I simply smiled, and pointed out that Dick Cheney and his friend had stolen most of that money from the country. He had nothing to say to that, this guy who had a severe car accident a few years ago, and whose health coverage allowed him to recover, and who did not lose his job while he was recovering. Idiot.

Nation Finally Shitty Enough to Make Social Progress, from Nov 5 08.

Awww, W never wanted to be President, he wanted to be Baseball Commissioner!

Would that he'd gotten his wish. Yes, it'd be bad for baseball, but we can clean that up more easily than the whole country.

For a number of years I have been jokingly blaming Bud Selig for everything that has gone wrong in this country, since I don't think even Bush could have done worse things to baseball than Selig did, and Selig was unlikely to have become president. (Of course, being a Brewers fan I have a special hate for Selig.)

Oh for that alternate universe. :)

And here's to tomorrow!

Bush? Selig? Ouch, tough choice.

One of Bush's exit interviews included his statement that he was too much of a Type A (!) personality to sit around on the beach in a Hawaiian shirt. How much more can one country/world take?

[ "Never surrender, never give up."

"You just reminded me I haven't watched Galaxy Quest for quite some time, by Grabtha's Hammer!" ]

Then I've done something for the force of good today. :)

I haven't seen it in too long myself. My husband and laughed ourselves nearly sick when we saw back then.

Love, C.

"If only one person was allowed to write the historical account of the Bush years that would be saved for the ages, I'd like it to be a black woman from New Orleans."

We had dinner with the production manager for Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke today. He ran just about everything except the film footage research. He was on the ground the second the pumps got the water out in October. His local crew literally could not keep working when they went to the Lower 9th, they were weeping so hard. As you probably know When the Levees Broke was shown first to New Orleanians, in New Orleans Superdome. People wept for four hours non-stop.

It's not over, not by any remote sense of imagination. People's pain and trauma is a resevoir as vast what the levees' failure did to New Orleans, and goes on and on. But they are continuing to work, to move on. Except those who can't because they drowned or were turned back and died, or because it all got to be more than a solitary soul can bear.

Love, C.

I'll bet I can forestall a bunch of questions by explaining what I didn't include. I arbitrarily left out most of the regular features, like the "American Voices" and "What Do You Think?" pieces, the guest columnists, the infographics, and many of the multimedia items.

Also:

November 8, 2000: Bush Or Gore: 'A New Era Dawns'.
February 21, 2001: Bush Still Getting Clinton's Mail.
February 28, 2001: Bush Seeking Non-Masturbating Surgeon General.
June 6, 2001: Bush Picks Up 20 Copies Of Washington Post He's In.
June 20, 2001: Jenna Bush's Federally Protected Wetlands Now Open For Public Drilling.
August 15, 2001: Laura Bush Noisily Devours Infant.
October 03, 2001: Sales Of Chamomile Tea, Gas Masks Up Sharply.
October 03, 2001: Network Programming Dominated By Surreality TV.
October 10, 2001: Screaming Japanese Schoolgirls Overturn Greenspan's Bus.
October 10, 2001: Dildo Manufacturers Association: Nation Must Return To Normalcy, Purchase Dildos.
October 31, 2001: Terrorism Storylines Being Added To TV Shows As Quickly As They Were Dropped.
November 07, 2001: Flood Of Cheap Afghan Heroin To Arrive Just In Time For Recession.
December 19, 2001: Report: U.S. Must Reduce Dependence On Foreign Turmoil.
December 19, 2001: National Board Of Steve Jaskoviak Requests $10 Billion Bailout.
April 10, 2002: Cheney Returns To U.S. With Full Head Of Thick, Wavy Hair.
June 12, 2002: Bush Extremely Proud Of New Suit.
June 19, 2002: Gore Begins Training For 2004 Election In Remote Mountain Cabin.
July 17, 2002: Cheney Caught Moonlighting.
April 16, 2003: 45 More Legislators Lose Jobs To Increased Congressional Automation.
May 7, 2003: Bush To Lovely Chilean Ambassador:'I Must Paint You'.
July 9, 2003: Giant Girl Forces Playthings Cheney And Rumsfeld To Wed.
July 23, 2003: Deficit-Wracked Maryland Calls It Quits.
October 8, 2003: Gorillagram Employee Shot By White House Security.
November 19, 2003: African Leaders Still Treating Clinton As President.
May 19, 2004: White House Slam Dunk Contest Results In No Slam Dunks.
November 17, 2004: Actual Governing To Resume.
December 8, 2004: Bollywood Remake Of Fahrenheit 9/11 Criticizes Bush Administration Through Show-Stopping Musical Numbers.
January 5, 2005: Bush Vows To Put Man On Moon Before It Disappears At End Of Month'.
January 19, 2005: White House Dishwasher Tenders Resignation.
March 16, 2005: Bush Followed Everywhere By Line Of Baby Ducks.
April 6, 2005: Terri Schiavo Dies of Embarrassment.
July 20, 2005: New Puppy Teaches Congress Important Lesson About Responsibility.
July 27, 2005: Embattled Rove Seeks Asylum In Scarborough Country.
August 24, 2005: Bush Calls For Rock Revolution In Weekly Pirate-Radio Address.
August 31, 2005: Republicans, Democrats Unite In Good Laugh Over Reform Party.
October 20, 2005: Department Of The Interior's Official Seal Definitely Bush's Favorite.
November 22, 2005: White House Séance Fails To Contact Spirit Of Ronald Reagan.
December 2, 2005: Bush Proposes Trickle-Down Electronics Plan For School Computers.
December 7, 2005: Report: U.S. Coupon Wealth Largely Untapped.
December 9, 2005: President Bush: 'I Only Have One More Year To Go As President'.
December 21, 2005: President Bush To Airdrop His Texas Chili Recipe To Third World Countries.
January 17, 2006: U.S. Holds Going-Out-Of-Business Sale.
April 25, 2006: Bush Promotes Hydrogen As Alternative Fuel Source.
April 28, 2006: President Bush Gives Zambia Emergency Cell Phone.
July 19, 2006: Bush Arrives At Caribbean Summit Aboard Catamaran One.
August 7, 2006: Bush Designates USA Today "Small Business".
March 14, 2007: Kerry Blasts Bush's Breakfast Plan.
June 18, 2007: After 5 Years In U.S., Terrorist Cell Too Complacent To Carry Out Attack.
October 15, 2007: Laura Bush: U.S. To Condemn Burma.
December 5, 2007: Seating Chart Revised To Put Problem Senators Up Front.
January 30, 2008: Congress To Raise Alpacas To Aid Struggling Economy.
February 5, 2008: Bush To Meet With Agriculture Secretary Down In The Holler.
April 21, 2008: Financial Analysts Offer To Talk About Recession For $5.
May 22, 2008: 'Wheel Of Fortune' Contestants Hit Hard As Vowel Prices Skyrocket.
August 6, 2008: Bush To Olympians: 'Bring Back Lots Of Valuable Gold'.
September 17, 2008: My Son Has Exactly The Ideas Needed To Turn This Company Around.
October 3, 2008: Bush Calls In National Marching Band To Lift U.S. Spirits.
October 15, 2008: The Imminent Collapse Of Global Markets Is No Reason To Skimp On Four-Season Gutter Protection.
October 28, 2008: Report: Election May Come Down To Single Candidate.
November 3, 2008: Struggling Americans Forced To Work Extra-Dimensional 4th Shift.
November 4, 2008: Magical Voting Booth Transforms Clearheaded Americans Into Reactionist Morons.
November 5, 2008: Nation Finally Shitty Enough to Make Social Progress.
December 4, 2008: Bill Clinton Agrees To Disclose Guacamole Recipe.
December 17, 2008: Area Woman Becomes Republican Vice Presidential Candidate.
May 27, 2008: Daring Bush Returns From Egypt With Crystal Skull.

December 9, 2008: President To Face Down Monster Attack, Own Demons In Action-Packed Schedule.

I'll confess to one other reason for leaving it out: that word in the headline should have been "reactionary" rather than "reactionist". It set my teeth on edge.

November 5, 2003: Energy Secretary Just Assumed Cabinet Knew He Did Porn Films In The '80s.

Love, C.

All together now.

We hate to see you go.
We hate to see you go.
We hope to heck you never come back,
We hate to see you go -- NOT!

Y'know, when I carried a sign that said WE WILL NOT GET OVER THIS at the inaugural protest in January 2001, some stupid fuck in a Confederate uniform jeered at me for holding a grudge.

The appropriate response would be "YR DOIN' IT WRONG!" Flaming bag of cat poop to the head optional, but so tempting.

Thanks so much for all the effort you put into this.

I posted some pictures of it to my flickr page.

> Their 9/11 issue hit just the right note of sadness and outrage with sanity-preserving humor.

The one about the woman baking the American flag cake after seeing the world trade center destroyed was unbeatable - absurd and pointless and brave and melancholy and compassionate and idiotic and stoic - a swirl of emotions that could be expressed by nothing better than the article itself.

Condi Rice still has aspirations of being NFL Commissioner, as I recall.

Alternate Universe Condi Rice with a beard! Far out!

Talk about two-faced hypocrisy.

In other news, Dick Cheney has apparently hurt his back and will be attending the inauguration in a wheelchair. I wonder if he'll have trouble with arm control? ("Mein Fuhrer, I can ... walk!")

It appears that the item "Bush Reluctantly Accepts Donation from Parents" in on both the main list and the list in #91.

It's one of those situations: I have a historical grievance; you hold a grudge; they should just get over it alrady.

The Onion issue commemorating 9/11 was magnificent, front to back. I can't recall anything remotely comparable in terms of a situation where a comedic institution rose so well to the challenge of a completely unfunny occasion that demanded a response nonetheless. And yes, here's hoping they won't need to again. (For several lifetimes, at least).

I hope, somehow, decades on, when the time comes to collect the best writing of the century, that some of those pieces get considered. That American flag cake deserves to be remembered. We were all Americans, for a short while.

Field Negro has a different take on the matter:

And Dick, you are not fooling anybody. Sprained your back moving my ass. You were in a wheel chair because you did not want to have to stand up for his O ness. It was your final "F" you to a man and a movement who and which you despise and which is the very antithesis of everything you stand for. So tonight when you jump up out of that chair and start planning how to spend the millions you stole from us, may you fall on your fat ass and hurt your back "fo" real this time.

And one of his commenters adds:

Just one thing: While I think Dick Cheney is the spawn of Satan himself, he DID stand up and applaud the section of the speech where Obama said we'd never give in to terror.

Which tends to support FN's thesis....

The Onion guys knew it way back in 2000.

Amazing.