Honey, I shrunk the superpower.

I agree with Bagnews that the image on the cover of the Times magazine this weekend is a striking reminder of what the Bush years have done to this country. As he ascends the podium for his last State of the Union speech, Bush does so against the backdrop of a country that has become isolated internationally, been exposed militarily, and has entered and uncertain future of war without end, I suppose. At the same time, he remains defiant in a Fox News interview, pedantically telling the reporter that he will be exonerated in the end, that his administration will not be judged as anything other than the hard medicine that the American people needed at this juncture in history.

The reality that this petty, secretive, vindictive dry drunk ignores is a legacy of executive overreach and a conscious and willful ignorance of the first principles that this country was founded upon.

Watch this evening as he rails against the 70% of the country that finds him so loathsome that they literally count the days until his departure. Somewhere in the speech, he'll stumble into a brief discussion of Iraq. He'll tout the success of the surge, although violence continues to wrack the country. He'll spin yarns about the emerging democratic state, although none exists.

In the end, his irrelevance is all that matters. He has already begun to exit the stage, while the economy, for which he never felt he got any credit, collapses around him. In the Post today, a grim reminder of the Bush team's current standing with the American public:

The scope of Bush's challenge was underscored by a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, conducted Jan. 9 to 12, which showed that the economy has overtaken the war as the key worry for voters and that Bush is receiving no credit for improving conditions in Iraq. According to the poll, 29 percent of voters now see the economy as the top issue in the 2008 elections, compared with 20 percent who cite Iraq.

Bush's overall approval rating was 32 percent, his lowest ever, with 30 percent of the public approving of his handling of Iraq. His handling of the economy rated even worse, with 28 percent approval compared with 41 percent a year ago.

It will be painful, but I'll force myself to watch.