9/11. Warrantless wiretapping. Two wars. Jack Abramoff. CIA black flights. Abu Ghraib. The apparently fake turkey photo-op. Gitmo. “Mission Accomplished.” Bank bailouts. Playing guitar while New Orleans submerged. The Bush years have been, at the least, memorable, and at worst surreal. So perhaps a fitting way to remember his two-term presidency is through a look at MAD magazine covers created over the last eight years. More covers after the jump, plus other memories of the reign of “43.”

Bush’s “dumbest moments” reminds us of the president’s infamous (and un-asked-for) shoulder massage of German chancellor Angela Merkel (here with a soundtrack by Ludacris), as well as memorable gaffes like his statement about how hard it is for single moms “to put food on your family.”

Slate’s list of “top 25 Bushisms of all time” includes a few forgotten quips, like his 2007 comment that “I’ve heard [British Prime Minister Tony Blair has] been called Bush’s poodle. He’s bigger than that.”

Our sister site The Washington Independent looks at the foreign and domestic “pols that most regret supporting Bush“ — including our own former Sen. Norm Coleman.

Harper’s dedicates a gigantic edition of its famed Index to the Bush administration. A sample:

Days after Hurricane Katrina hit that Cheney’s office ordered an electric company to restore power to two oil pipelines: 1

Days after the hurricane that the White House authorized sending federal troops into New Orleans: 4

Portion of the $3.3 billion in federal Hurricane Katrina relief spent by Mississippi that has benefited poor residents: 1/4

And local blogger Jeff Fecke, formerly of MnIndy, has been doing his own rundown of the Bush years at Moderate Left, but perhaps the best closer is this music video he reminds us of: the less-than-prophetic conservative hard-rock anthem, “Bush was right!”