Only 50 more days of President George W. Bush. So many feelings, right? ABC has released the transcript of a Charlie Gibson sit-down interview airing tonight, and it must be said that our current president was, and remains, a very stupid man. For example, he blames the current recession on "a lot of the decisions that were made on Wall Street took place over a decade or so, before I arrived in president." But now is a time to look forward. Is there a future for the man who wrecked our nation and the world? Yes, and his stupidity is what makes it work. Take our advice and prosper, George; here are the five keys to the revival of your image:

President Bush has long assumed, rather idiotically, that his universal unpopularity was just a fluke, and that historians would remember him kindly. The fact is there will almost certainly be revisionists at some future point who will say "he's not so bad" but torture and Katrina and Iraq kind of seal the deal for his future reputation. But, sitting down with, uh, his sister for an oral history interview on the end of his administration, Bush is sanguine and only slightly defensive. How would he like to be remembered? As a guy who "did not sell his soul." The rest of his answer veers off into patently untrue nonsense:

Last weekend, President Bush attended the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit in Lima, Peru. Turns out you can't do anything in Peru without someone handing you Peru's national drink, the Pisco Sour (made with pisco, a brandy-like liquor). It's a pretty agreeable drink, so we wouldn't complain, but President Bush has been supposedly teetotalling for 22 years. He avoided an international incident by downing that sucker. Peru's ANDINA press agency has some great details:

Yesterday we pointed out that our nation's current idiot president, George "W" Bush, had made the unlikely move of commuting the cocaine-smuggling sentence of a rapper—a black man, with unruly hair!—because that rapper, John Forte, went to fancy prep school Exeter, and being a prep school cokehead is something Bush can relate to. Friends, we firmly believe in the accuracy of this macroanalysis. But even more amusing is the micro-analysis, because the chain of events that caused the union-busting Republican Mormon Sen. Orrin Hatch to become a fierce advocate of the (allegedly) coke-slinging producer of The Fugees is just what America is all about: Step One: John Forte goes to Exeter, makes friends with Carly Simon's kid, then makes friends with Carly Simon. Step Two: John Forte goes to jail. Step Three: Carly Simon records one of Orrin Hatch's soulful ballads and then is like "Okay now you owe me, old man."

In 1996, Leslie Owen Collier pleaded guilty to killing three bald eagles. Naturally, President Bush has just pardoned him. Back in 1995, Collier, some sort of rabble-rousing anarchist farmer, crushed pesticides into delicious hamburger meat and left it outside to kill any adorable little animals that might cross his path. Naturally, after killing a red-tailed hawk, a great horned owl, an opossum, and a raccoon, three majestic Bald Eagles partook in some left-over poison hamburger, and promptly died. The Bald Eagle is our nation's bold fresh mascot, like the Pillsbury Doughboy of not getting tread upon. Naturally, the eagle was nearly extinct within 200 years of the founding of our nation, and it's been a crime to "kill" them since the 1940s. Why would Bush pardon this cold-blooded freedom-killer? Well! According to an anti-American "natural history" site hosted on Canadian servers, the Bald Eagle is not so much of a majestic predator, swooping down and pecking to death our nation's many enemies, but really more of a lazy scavenger, subsisting mainly on "what it finds cast onto the shore." So the Bald Eagle is the Original Lazy Welfare Queen of the Skies, which is why Bush pardoned this brave hero.

Who said George W. Bush is not a friend to the hip hop community? The president has gone and pardoned John Forte, a rapper (who got briefly famous doing tracks with the Fugees) who's been in prison since 2000 for a cocaine smuggling conviction. $1.4 million in liquid coke through the Newark airport, to be precise. I forgive Bush for the wars and everything now! Forte has always maintained his innocence, but so does everyone else in jail, and you don't see Republican Christian fundamentalist zealot politicians pardoning them. So why did W. set Forte free? It's those private school connections paying off:

It was an awkward moment, topping even Barack Obama's meeting with the president he spent two years running against: Economist and Times columnist Paul Krugman, receiving congratulations for his Nobel Prize from the man he said built the "Party of Stupid," who "got rid of accountability," and who "was lying" about his "patently, shamelessly dishonest" budget, among many, many other brutal criticisms Krugman has leveled against the president over the past seven years. The photo, by Chip Somodevilla, says plenty, but hopefully Krugman will write something (for his blog?) on the words that actually came out of the president's mouth at the Oval Office meeting.

Barack Obama was elected just a few weeks ago, and he does not take office until late January. But everyone is so excited! He got his transition website up and running right away, and everyone in America immediately clicked on the "jobs" tab, because everyone in America needs a job. Sorry, guys—they've already received 200,000 applications. Which is unprecedented for an incoming administration. We did the research! In December of 2000, right after it finally became clear that George W. Bush would be our next president and the world was therefore doomed, the New York Times reported that there was a surge of applications for jobs in his administration too. That surge was totally pathetic, though, in retrospect:

President Bush went to the G20 Summit and no one wanted to shake his hand. :( [Videogum]

America, as we've learned, has a big PR problem. The rest of the world doesn't like us so much! Our current president is something of a laughingstock, you see, and we have this problem with expecting others to live up to the ideals we espouse as we fail to live up to them ourselves. You can see how that might bug people, right? Thankfully we're done with the Bush administration. Listen to how little Bush is respected by the Russians and French:

United States President George W. Bush gave a speech today about the perilous financial crisis that threatens to plunge our nation into a prolonged recession from hell. As you'll see when you click to watch this skillful video compilation, Mr. Bush has a genetic inability to deliver a single god damn sentence containing Very Serious News without adding his stupid smirk at the end. In and of itself it's sort of a tragicomic statement on the nature of the last eight years. But it's much scarier when you consider the reality of our situation: we don't really even have a president right now. Obama's people have been repeating the mantra "One president at a time" over and over, like some sort of magic political talisman. Barack has no desire to get too involved at the moment, because politically that would mean taking on lot of responsibility without technically having any power. And Bush is just sleepwalking through his last few months. He's not just a lame duck, he's a lame duck who everyone despises. He couldn't get anything accomplished even if he wanted to. Which he doesn't. He wants to play with Barney and keep quiet enough to maybe land that Commissioner of Baseball gig a few years down the line. Neither of those things would be all that bad if we weren't mired in a financial crisis of epic proportions. Because when a crisis happens somebody has to be in charge. And if Bush isn't, and Barack isn't, you know who is? Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson! John Crudele has already taken to referring to him as "de facto president of the US." Which is not too far off the mark! And hey, maybe it's not such a bad thing to have a guy like Paulson in charge of all the most important decisions, considering they're in his field of expertise? Psht! This is the same guy whose original idea for solving this mess was to give all power to the Treasury to do whatever it wanted, with no challenges permitted. Paulson changed the focus of the bailout package for the third time yesterday. Third time! It doesn't inspire confidence, nor should it. In conclusion, our fake-elected bad president has no desire or incentive to do anything. Our actual president-elect: the same, until January. Our de facto president is incentivized and predisposed to focus solely on helping Wall Street. And everyone's money is disappearing in the meantime. Also, Iran. Hope nothing bad happens for the next three months!

"Laura is interviewing publishers who are bidding on her memoirs." [Post]

♦ Guy Ritchie met up with sons David and Rocco in London yesterday for the first time since October, but only after agreeing to follow a list of rules issued by Madonna, which included no new friends, no fast food, no newspapers, and no TV. [Us, Mirror]
♦ Back in the US, Madonna supposedly threw an "intimate dinner party" at her apartment so she could introduce Alex Rodriguez to a group of her friends. [Mirror]
♦ One week after Tim Robbins experienced a few problems trying to cast his vote in the presidential election, officials now say they pinpointed the issue: Robbins turned up at the wrong polling location, which he might have known if he'd bothered to vote in the mid-term elections. [NYDN, P6]

Barack Obama just visited the White House! He's the next president, so he's required by tradition to meet the guy still squatting there through the end of the year. They pose for pictures, then disappear into the Oval Office for a private talk about Russia and Iran and the helicopter button and how the White House Coke machine is free and how you get to call the Redskins and call your own plays that they have to run every Sunday during the season. In other words, no news. The fun stuff doesn't get leaked out for months, sometimes years after both guys are safely out of the office. So how did everyone cover this important event? With babbling about symbolism and historic blah blah and the weather today.

President Bush basically checked out six months ago, leaving the country rudderless and lost. We were distracted from this by a diverting election for a while, but now that's over. As President-elect Obama painfully explained in his first post-election press conference, we only get one president at a time. Except right now we get none! So maybe Obama should use today's White House transition meeting to figure out how to seize power, maybe? A coup, anyone? What else are they gonna do with the afternoon? Usually White House transition meetings are taken up with impressing upon the successor the awesome task ahead of him, but Obama probably understands that better than Bush does. So today Bush will probably just share some awesome White House secrets. The gold standard of terrible presidential transitions? The 1933 handover from Herbert Hoover to Franklin Roosevelt. Back then, the new president didn't take office until March, so there were four months of lame duck Hoover trying to fix the economy, and the banking crisis, while FDR just passive-aggressively let him fuck things up and promised to undo everything Hoover did, once in office.

Barack Obama and his "good bride" Michelle are set to meet the First Family at the White House Monday. This will be unavoidably awkward, what with Obama having spent the last two years talking about how terrible the Bush Administration has been and all. It certainly doesn't take the edge off things that Bush seemed deathly afraid to touch That One at their first meeting four years ago. Fox News tracked down the relevant passage in Obama's second memoir, the Audacity of Hope:

What did one of the most despised outgoing presidents in history say to his replacement, who had just been smothered in superlatives and the warmth of a nation? George W. Bush said election night was "awesome," referred oddly to Barack Obama's "good bride" and invited the president elect to what will probably be one of the most awkward dinners in White House history. "Amazing you got so dang far on that 'change' platform, hopey," we imagine the president saying, before reaching for another pull on his non-alcoholic beer. At least the president promised a "smooth transition." Click the video icon for MSNBC's summary of the call.

Returning alumni Will Ferrell (as George W. Bush) and Tina Fey turned last night's Thursday edition of Saturday Night Live into a veritable class reunion, but one other notable name returned behind the scenes: Ferrell's frequent collaborator Adam McKay. Little over a month ago, McKay (Step Brothers, Anchorman) lit up the left with a sky-is-falling Huffington Post blog entitled "We're Gonna Frickin' Lose This Thing," but to judge from the opening sketch he co-wrote, he now finds the Republican ticket about as threatening as a Jackie Mason PSA. The clip, after the jump:Click to view

This is the official end of the Bush Administration. Yes, he'll hang around the Oval Office for another couple months, but it's over. It's done. Everyone get to work on your obits! What happened today that finally signaled the end of the era? Bush surrendered, completely, to the reality-based community. Ron Suskind, whose work chronicling the Bush administration has basically been the best political journalism of the last eight years, is responsible for that legendary phrase. In a 2004 piece for the New York Times Magazine, Suskind quoted an unnamed Bush aide (Rove?) as saying this:

Ryan Reynolds hit the fundraising circuit running — literally — in an essay today on The Huffington Post, where he opened up about his training for next month's New York Marathon. There, despite vowing to avoid such events after once observing an epidemic of runners' bleeding nipples, the newlywed is racing on behalf of Michael J. Fox's foundation to fight Parkinson's Disease. But while we applaud his determination in battling 26 miles of nipple-chafe, Reynolds is running for more than just a good cause. He's also trotting into a celebrity pastime with a rich tradition of its own, competing against the likes of Will Ferrell, Katie Holmes, Diddy and even David Lee Roth's six-hour slog through New York in 1987. After the jump, find the ten swiftest boldfacers who ever laced up a pair of track shoes. Train harder, Ryan — and happy bleeding!MEN 1. Dana Carvey, 3:04:21 (Ocean to Bay Marathon, 1972) — Carvey is the only hint this marathon ever existed, though with photographic evidence scarce, we reluctantly place him at the top of the list of the World's Fastest Celeb Marathoner. 2. Björn Ulvaeus, 3:23:54 (Stockholm Marathon, 1980) — The ABBA co-founder also engineered a revolutionary antecedent to the Walkman and iPod, trademarking the waist-cinching Phonostrap to blast LP's on his high-energy training runs. 3. William Baldwin, 3:24:29 (New York City Marathon, 1992) — Before Alec divorced Kim Basinger, he was the only Baldwin brother to finish a marathon. 4. George W. Bush, 3:44:52 (Houston Marathon, 1993) — In an eerie harbinger of things to come, finished in 158th place but was declared the winner anyway. 5. Will Ferrell, 3:56:12 (Boston Marathon, 2003) — Trained naked, obviously, but ran the marathon in full Alex Trebex regalia (see above). WOMEN