Watching the performance of our frat boy president during Monday's final press conference and last night's Good Riddance Address to the nation, trying to but a smiley face on the most criminally incompetent administration in history, I was reminded of the story of the farmer who happened upon a young boy digging through a humongous pile of horse manure with his bare hands. When asked by the farmer just what the hell he was doing, the boy replied with words that should be engraved on the entrance of the George W. Bush Presidential Library:

"There's just got to be a pony in here somewhere!"

here's no pony; only the gnarled carcass of a very dead elephant.

The headline of the January 13 New York Daily News summed up Monday's final press conference perfectly: "BUSH WACKY". The First Fool was telling the American people that, like Douglas MacArthur's fabled old soldier, he is just going to fade away:

"When I get out of here, I'm getting off the stage - I've had my time in the klieg lights."

I hope that isn't so. If his public appearances this week are a harbinger of things to come, he should keep us rolling in the aisles for years to come. George W. Bush and the Right Wing crazies who have hijacked the Republican Party in the last three decades are, quite literally, the gift that keeps giving.

Back during the campaign of 2000 ("Ahma YOU-niter, notta DEE-vider") Don Imus told his listeners one morning:

"Please, vote for this guy, I'm begging you!"

What he was saying was that his job of making people laugh would be so much easier with such an idiot sitting in the Oval Office. Over two years ago, a friend of mine was commenting on my output on The Rant. "You're such a prolific writer", she told me. "Are you kidding me???", I said to her, "During the Age of Bush, these things write themselves!" Indeed, I imagine those of us who earn their reputations siphoning humor out of this virtual gold mine of material are going to have a much harder with President Obama in the White House. Please, George, keep in touch, okay?

"The phrase, 'burdens of office' is overstated."

Of every stupid statement this oaf of office has made since he took the oath of office eight, long years ago Tuesday, that one is the most revealing. It proves what I have believed for a long time; the guy is a sociopath. Sending nearly five-thousand American servicemen and women to their deaths wasn't a burden? A million or so dead Iraqi men, women and little children wasn't a burden? Does this hideous little twit even have a pulse?

If there is only one thing that all of the men who have survived that job have agreed on, it is the burdens of that office. Harry Truman once called the White House, "the finest prison money can buy". When Franklin D. Roosevelt entered the White House on March 4, 1933, he was a relatively young and vigorous fifty-one-year-old. When he died in office on April 12, 1945, he seemed to have aged thirty years.

The fact that Bush has taken on a much grayer, pallid look since 2001 means nothing. Not aging too well is a hallmark of the Pierce side of his family. I remember during the campaign of 1988 looking at photographs and videotape of Poppy Bush with his hideous wife Barbara at his side. "Awww!", I remember thinking, "Isn't that sweet? He brought his mom along with him!"

Last night's Good Riddance Address to the nation should have been on the front page of every newspaper in the country this morning. Unfortunately for the First Fool, the thunder was stolen from him by a man named Chesley "Sulley" Sullenberger, the pilot who skillfully and heroically landed a US Airways plane filled with over one-hundred people on the Hudson River just opposite the Island of Manhattan. The speech was highlighted on page nineteen of the Daily News; page fifteen of my local paper, the Times Herald-Record of Middletown, NY. Incredibly, the speech wasn't even mentioned on the New York Times website.

Bush was desperate to put lipstick on this pig of an administration. Instead of making the speech (as presidents always do) from the intimacy of the Oval Office, he did it from the East Room in front of an audience of family, sycophants and human props:

"I have followed my conscience and done what I thought was right. There may be legitimate debate about many of these decisions, but there can be little debate about the results."

Well, no kidding, Georgie!

"You may not agree with some of the tough decisions I have made, but I hope you can agree that I was willing to make the tough decisions."

Were do I begin....Tough decisions??? Were all of those jaw-droppingly stupid decisions he made during his reign of error all that tough to make? This guy is so piss-in-your-pants funny! Sometimes I have the fantasy that his speechwriter is a veteran comedy writer for Your Show of Shows with Sid Caesar.

"When the challenges to our prosperity emerged, we rose to meet them. Facing the prospect of a financial collapse, we took decisive measures to safeguard our economy. These are very tough times for hard working families, but the toll would be far worse if we had not acted."

The time has come for this man and his economic advisers to face some very nasty realities. We wouldn't be in this mess today had these bastards not stolen the election from Al Gore in 2000. As has been proven too many times to count throughout our history, whenever the plutocracy - the Right Wing - has seized control of all three branches of our government, they drove this country into the economic ditch every single time. Bush has only proved it yet again. Congratulations, George.

"Our enemies are patient and determined to strike again....We must resist complacency. We must keep our resolve. And we must never let down our guard....Every morning, I received a briefing on the threats to our nation. And I vowed to do everything in my power to keep us safe. "

Six words: "BIN LADEN DETERMINED TO STRIKE INSIDE U.S." Need I elaborate? I didn't think so.

"When people live in freedom they do not willingly choose leaders who pursue campaigns of terror."

I'm curious. Does this knucklehead even know the meaning of the word, "irony"?

"Like all who have held this office before me, I have experienced setbacks [Really? No kidding, George!] There are things I would do differently if given the chance. Yet I have always acted with the best interests of our country in mind."

Did he really have "the best interests of our country in mind" when he committed the stupidest military blunder in the history of this once-great nation when he invaded the (like it or not) sovereign nation of Iraq?

Did he really have "the best interests of our country in mind" when he plundered our national treasure by giving a tax cut to a class of people who already had more money than they knew what to do with?

Did he really have "the best interests of our country in mind" when he went off to party at a political fundraiser while the people of New Orleans were drowning?

Did he really have "the best interests of our country in mind" when he authorized the countless violations the Geneva Conventions and allowed combat detainees to be tortured?

Did he really have "the best interests of our country in mind" when he destroyed decades of foreign policy and diplomatic precedents?

Did he really have "the best interests of our country in mind" when he allowed his henchmen to reveal the identity of covert CIA agent Valerie Plaime for no other reason than to punish her husband Joe Wilson for telling the truth about the non-existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq ?

And finally a question to the people who naively voted for him: Did you have "the best interests of our country in mind" when you sent this half-witted, inarticulate jackass to the White House?

At the conclusion of last night's spectacle of an address, MSNBC's Chris Matthews said to colleague Keith Olbermann, "And that's the tragedy of the last eight years. He's learned the wrong lessons and he's out there selling them again tonight."

"To the last", replied Olbermann.

Tom Degan

Goshen, NY

In just four days this nightmare of an administration will be toast and jelly. Did you ever think that this country would sink as low as it has? Who would have thunk it?