Now that’s one wild and crazy guy! Where’s the kegger?!?

But it was that kind of party at the Thurgood Marshall Center Saturday night, when nearly 600 progressives – including the star of the evening, former White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart (who was busy posing for photos and also unwilling to wait in the long line for beer so he had a friend go fetch him one) — packed the joint in order to…

1.) Rejoice in a midnight countdown because it marked 365 days until President George W.  Bush leaves office.

2.) Consume liberal amounts of booze (they actually ran out towards the end of the night).

3.) Wave glo-sticks and dance awkwardly on the high school gymnasium-like floor while the deejays — “The US Department of Human Entertainment” — spun tunes.

4.) Talk sufficient trash about George W. Bush (“Ohmygod…only one more year! Can you believe it?!?” said one).

“The Final Countdown: The End of An Error” was sponsored by a virtual who’s who of local progressives, including Michael Bassik from MSHC Partners, Julian Mulvey from Devine Mulvey, Arik Ben-Zvi from the Glover Park Group, Keya Chatterjee from the World Wildlife Fund, Adam Conner from Facebook’s Washington, D.C. office, Julia Cohen from Voxiva, consultant Renee Carl, Karen Finney from the DNC, John Edwards campaign consultant Ivan Frishberg, Josh Galper from Orrick, Tom Matzzie from MoveOn.org, Jamal Simmons from New Future Communications and lots of folks from the Center for American Progress (Brian Komar, Bracken Hendrick, Praveen Madhiraju, Ramya Raghavan, Amanda Terkel and David Halperin).

(c) Dakota Fine

It was the kind of party where, instead of “Hi! My Name Is…” stickers, revelers slapped  on such statements as “Unjust Wars,” “President with lowest IQ in history” and “No More Lies.” Those stickers got placed on people’s back, to signify what they won’t miss about the Bush administration. On the front? What they’re looking forward to in a more progressive country: “Ongoing Face to Face Dialogue,” “Kyoto,” “Global Voting Rights,” “$ for schools, not guns,” and, of course, “Correct Grammar.” (Unfortunately, the vegans in the house didn’t really find it funny when Yeas & Nays got our picture taken having made our own sign: “Bacon is for lovers.” Oh well…)

“Progressives have been waiting seven years to get to the point that it’s a number of days instead of a number of years before Bush goes,” said Center for American Progress’ Brian Komar. “This was a way to get people jazzed about being a progressive and clearly they’re hungry for it.”

(c) Dakota Fine