Ever since 2000, and again in 2004, people have been complaining about the president. “He’s… Ever since 2000, and again in 2004, people have been complaining about the president. “He’s incompetent,” says Joe Public. “He’s an egotistical cowboy with an itchy trigger finger – a Yosemite Sam with access to nuclear weapons.” With an approval rating hovering in the 30s, it seems as if members of both parties are counting down the days until the 2008 election, when some lucky American will get the opportunity to take over a nation that has been mismanaged for the last eight years.

But, while 70 percent of the country sits on enormous couches in Starbucks, explaining to their friends how a trained dolphin could have run the country better, I lie here in my bed with a beating heart and a quart of rocky road, worrying about what will happen when Dubya finally leaves the oval office for a life of public appearances and golf tournaments.

I am a columnist. I thrive on oddities and events that happen around the world in order to do my job. If people don’t shoot themselves in the foot, or condemn unconscious prime ministers, or let white rats loose in my house, I have nothing to write about. As any columnist, comedian, singer, cartoonist or rabbi can tell you, George W. Bush has been an invaluable resource in the popular and artistic realms throughout the last two terms.

The 2000 election was a scary time. Bill Clinton couldn’t have left the office at a worse point. He was just hitting his stride. His face was on every news channel, cigar jokes were running wilder than vines in the jungle – he was doing a great job providing the media and entertainment industries with material. But, according to that stupid “two-term” rule, we had to let him go and find somebody else to pick on

At the time, the American people didn’t get it. The majority actually voted for Al Gore, a robotic tree-hugger with absolutely no potential of doing anything remotely funny or controversial. Luckily, the justices of the Supreme Court, who have always been pretty big jokers, saw the people’s mistake and gave the presidency to Bush, providing columnists everywhere with eight solid years of pure gold.

Sometimes it was funny – he’d mispronounce words, choke on a pretzel or make faces reminiscent of a chimpanzee. Sometimes it was scary and upsetting – he’d send more troops to the desert, respond too slowly to natural disasters or ignore scientific evidence about stem cells and global warming. No matter what it was, if a columnist needed a topic, all he had to ask was, “What did Bush do today?”

By the way, isn’t it ironic that Bush’s resemblance to a chimp may actually be science’s best piece of evidence supporting the theory of evolution? Just a thought.

Anyway, I don’t think that the American people are ready for this change. Barack Obama? John McCain? These are well-spoken, educated, level-headed people. What are we supposed to do with that? Liberals everywhere have started preparing for this social meltdown. Hippies all across the country have put down their bongo drums in search of real jobs. Hollywood is desperately looking for some other way to sound smart. Jay Leno is handing his show over to Conan O’Brien in 2009, just in time for the new president. Do you really think that that’s just a coincidence? I don’t.

Presidents are supposed to be judged by their place in history. When we look back on Bush Jr., what will we see? If you really think about it, there have been much, much worse rulers. Nero, of the Roman Empire, persecuted Christians and ignored the Great Fire. Genghis Khan raped and pillaged his way across the entire Asian continent. In the 1500s, Ivan the Terrible was known for torturing and killing anybody whom he suspected of infidelity. And that doesn’t even include Stalin, Mussolini or any of the bad guys from “24.”

It may not seem like it now, but when the next president is sworn in, many people, me included, will be sorry to see him go. The scene in Washington will be familiar, like the time Major League Baseball granted D.C. a team, and everyone in the city was happy until one guy woke up and realized, “Wait a second – they gave us the Expos!” Reporters and artists will finally realize how much Bush has done for them throughout the years, right before they return to writing commercial jingles and interviewing the 101-year-old woman and her 16 cats.

So, tomorrow, when you’re sitting ’round with your buddies bashing the president, don’t be so quick to judge the 43rd leader of our great nation. Sure, he’s alienated the international community and has taken away the civil liberties of his constituents. But, when he’s gone and we’re stuck with a competent leader who will work for the good of all American people instead of just a select few, I promise that you’re going to start missing Mr. Bush. I know I will.

E-mail Sam at [email protected].