246 Days left.

My 10 year-old niece got me a calendar for Christmas.  Kid's smart, and knows me well.  She got me the 2008 George W. Bush Out of Office Countdown Calendar.  It's filled with date-specific quotes from our dipshit-in-chief, as well as photos showing him mugging for the camera at inappropriate times and just being bewildered by situations completely beyond his understanding.  It also has each day marked with how many days are left in office for this bozo.

As of today, there are 246 days left for our idiot president to remain in office.  There isn't any particular quote on today's date, so that's not why I am writing.  

Rather, on the eve of yet another primary election, I thought I would take a moment from looking at our candidates, and even from looking at John McCain, and just revel in the fact that Bush will be gone in a little over 35 weeks.  Conceive a child now, and the likelihood is that child will be born in the post-Bush era.  That might be the best present that you could give a child.

I remember election night, 1980.  It felt like we were entering a long, dark tunnel (and that proved to be correct, of course).  Thanks to the debacle of the 2000 election, there wasn't that single moment early on - just the lingering anxiety over whether the world was going to tip this way, or that.  But the sense of looming disaster was much the same.  With Bush, it turned out to be even worse than I feared, worse than my nightmares imagined.

Since his taking office, I have closed a beloved business, been a full-time care giver for a family member with Alzheimer's, watched that person wither and die, and stood by as witness as the world descended further than I ever thought possible into madness.  Personally, it has not been a good 7.5 years.  For our country, and our world, it has been a disaster.  

We all know this.  The tunnel we've been caught in has been dank, dim, and filled with dread.  But the light at the end is only 246 days away.  

Rejoice - Inauguration Day, 2009 is coming.