Some patriotic Americans decided to let bygones be bygones and give President Bush a goodbye befitting a man of his relevance and stature…

President Bush was given an Iraqi-journalist-style sendoff on his last full day in office Monday, as tourists and demonstrators lobbed shoes, pumps, boots, sandals and Crocs from Pennsylvania Avenue onto the White House lawn…

Marching down Connecticut Avenue with handfuls of footwear, the group of about a hundred was on the receiving end of enthusiastic honks, thumbs-up and waves from people in the street…

Tourists on Pennsylvania Avenue picked up shoes and lobbed them at the White House as well. "A lot of random people joined in," noted one organizer, David Swanson.

But, wait! It gets classier…

Before launching the operation live, the shoe-chuckers took target practice in Dupont Circle on a 20-foot-tall blow up doll of the outgoing president, decked out in the flight suit he wore aboard the "Mission Accomplished" aircraft carrier…

The target practice on the giant Bush doll began around 11:00 in the morning and was still going five hours later, as thousands of people walking through the circle stopped to pick up a shoe and wing it at the outgoing president. Some threw fastballs like al-Zaidi. Others tied several together in an attempt to land them on Bush's long Pinocchio-esque nose. Children took part. ("Okay. One more shoe, kids," said one parent.)

Some folks simply walked up to the doll and kicked it in the shins. It fell over at one point and people rushed it, beating it with shoes.

I don't know about you, but I think this kind of behavior is shameful and doesn't in any way represent the kind of political discourse that I think belongs in one of the greatest nations in the world. Right now — with George Bush so close to being gone and Barack Obama so close to being inaugurated — we need to stand together as a nation and put all this partisan bickering behind us. We need to acknowledge that George Bush was a flawed president, but he was still our president. And, thusly, he deserves our respect.

I'm just kidding. I think it's hilarious.

That's the only thing so far that's made me wish I was in Washington this week.

A website for dissidents and retifists…

On which side of this controversy would you like to align yourself?

Think carefully.

Can you believe that it took four whole days for someone to turn George Bush's legacy moment into a flash online video game?

You're supposed to make Bush try to dodge the flying shoes.

But there's no law that says you gotta.

Today, for some reason, I'm having a hard time being even as not-funny as I normally am.

Maybe it's my unquenchable liberal anger that some guy who I barely care about is going to say something that I don't care about at all at the Inauguration. Maybe my extreme excitement at the prospect of Tom Vilsack being the Secretary of Something or Other drained me of all my serotonin. Maybe blah blah blahggity blah blah.

Anyway, here's a video from Funny or Die. (At the moment, I guess I'm dead.)

One blogger has come up with an interesting idea for following the example set by Muntader al-Zaidi and his selfless act of donating the shoes off his feet to President Bush…

This morning, the Rude Pundit decided to honor the efforts of Muntader al-Zaidi, the Iraqi shoe-tosser, by taking out a raggedy old pair of sneakers, putting them in a Priority Mail shipping box, helpfully provided by the United States Post Office, and shipping them to President George W. Bush at the White House. He included a note that read, "This is a farewell kiss from the American people, you dog."

Since throwing objects at the president is generally considered a crime, the Rude Pundit figures sending shoes to Bush is a small, good thing, a gesture of contempt that has context. Sweet Christ, at this point, there should be giant sacks of shoes heading to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC, 20500, like letters to Santa.

The holidays always make me choke up a little in my mouth.

(via Pharyngula)

You know, I've been getting the two Bush disaster videos (Barney's Christmas Bullshit and The President's New Shoes) all mixed up in my head as it was.

And now I'm never gonna get them straight ever again…

The CC Insider's Gonzalo Cordova (who created the gif): "I hear in the Middle East, throwing a dog at someone is a grave insult."

I'm pretty sure that's the case.

Oh, and by the way, you should really check out Gonzalo's deconstruction of the Barney video.