It's the Final Countdown.

I love this, by Bill Cope; I mean, that it actually came from Idaho:

Eight years ago, a person I argued politics with on a regular basis showed me an essay she'd written to express her delight that Bill Clinton—utterly loathsome in her eyes—was being replaced by George Bush, a man she seemed to think represented the best our country had to offer. She titled it "Feels like America Again," and she showed it to me because she had hopes of being a writer and wanted to know what I thought of her effort. Style, tone, clarity, zing level ...

...It was written well, and I told her so. I also told her, if not in so many words, that you can write something well—even remarkably well—and still have your head up your ass. But she ignored that admonition and continued to applaud Bush's every move for as long as I had contact with her, which ended four or five years ago.

I bring it up because, as a lingering result of having read that essay, I have spent these eight years wondering what I would write when Bush finally left the White House. Especially after the full horror of what he has done became increasingly clear, I wanted it to be something extraordinary. But what does one say to sufficiently commemorate the shuffling off of the worst excuse for a human being to squat in the Oval Office in modern times?

I have concluded that one column simply isn't enough. Hence, I have dedicated today's entry along with the next two weeks, ending on the day after Barack Obama's inauguration, to saying a proper farewell to Dubya. That's right ... a three-parter. And get this ... the second installment will be (if the logistics can be arranged with Boise Weekly) an opera. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, an opera. I am wavering between what to call it—either Il Bushliacci, Cosi Fan Georgie, or Der Decidermeister—but I assure you it will have everything a proper opera must have. Except, of course, for an orchestra, staging, singers and music.

Now, if you feel I am giving the man more attention than he deserves, remember that this moment will never come again. Within another month, he will sink back into the mud of mediocrity from which he emerged, leaving nothing but a ruined economy, a devastated federal structure, an endangered biosphere, two failing wars, an ocean of debt and an indeterminable number of corpses behind to remind us he was ever here.

Read the whole thing here:

http://www.boiseweekly.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=320076