Back in the day, Kings had jesters...

... Now the jesters make fun of HIM.

Moments after Jay Leno ripped President Bush in his monologue one night last week the "Tonight Show" host interviewed "the president," "via satellite" from "Kyoto, Japan."

A grinning president, looking not quite himself, appeared, greeting Leno in botched Japanese. Leno asked what he thinks of the Kyoto Accord.

"Kyoto Accord, Kias, Hondas -- Jay, all those little foreign cars, same thing," said the commander-in-chief, his shoulders doing a bumpkin-like bounce as he heh-heh-hehs.

Leno asked the purpose for the trip.

Bush: "We want to bring democracy to Japan."

Leno: "Mr. President, Japan is a democracy!"

Bush smiled wide, looked directly into the camera and with an exaggerated thumbs-up gesture replied, "Mission accomplished!"

Big audience laugh.

This is Aaron Teagle's dream job.

Bush has that one quality that every president of the modern media has possessed -- he is easy to mimic. But why do we do him? What is it about a crisis-brewing, low approval-rated second term that brings out even more of the presidential impersonator in everyone? It is perhaps the reassurance that we are an essentially ungovernable, sass-back nation of malcontents. Your brother-in-law does a good W., never mind that he staunchly supported him in 2004. Everyone can do him, a little, or an impression of someone else's impression. No form of American political humor cuts closer to the bone than impersonating the president, with all the verbal ticks, mannerisms, faults and foibles exaggerated [...]

Describing key characteristics of "doing Bush," O'Meara sounds like the president's shrink. "There is the overconfident George Bush, which is one of my favorites, like the day he introduced 'the architect of the campaign,' Karl Rove," says O'Meara, who has been doing presidential impressions since he was 5, when he heard Vaughn Meader's impression of John F. Kennedy. "There's the smug, arrogant Bush I like more than any of them. And there's another one most of us love -- the struggling George Bush, trying to find the right words.

"It is so much fun when you have a president who gives you so much material," he says. "It is really a slice of Americana, comedians doing impressions of presidents."

But of course, in 2008... (or sooner, if there is a new wave of Democrats elected to both the House and the Senate and they manage to impeach and remove from office George W. Bush and Richard Cheney) this "dream job" is over, unless they learn to adapt.

Bridges says he just goes for laughs -- though he's thankful for the president's troubles. "When a president is right about where Bush is right now," he says, "it is actually pretty good for us. People aren't as sensitive about poking fun at him."

But it always ends [...]

"There's the deadline, and they're kind of rooting for their candidate to win because their job is at stake," says Freidrichs. "Their performance is limited to about eight years."

Morris, who can earn as much as $10,000 for a corporate-party appearance, says he suffers panic attacks every presidential campaign. "Oh-eight should be very interesting, especially if Hillary is in the mix," he says.

Forte deadpans, "I'm already working on my Hillary Clinton."

And I can't wait.