Yes, George, I’d like to thank you and your deceitful manipulating cohorts for taking the country as far down this road as you have.

At the beginning of it all, George, you began by manipulating the election to get you the presidency. This left a lot of us angry and frustrated, but — all right — that’s the nature of politics — so we said, “Let’s see what you can do with the job.”

The next thing we knew was that our country was being threatened with nuclear destruction from Iraq’s insane dictator, Saddam Hussein, and you convinced us he had the weapons and was ready to strike.

Well, we were all in shock from 9/11, feeling vulnerable, so we bought it.

No weapons found, just you strutting around on a carrier telling us what a wonderful thing we had just accomplished.

Yes, George, you had accomplished getting us into an impossible quagmire that you and your advisors in all your wisdom hadn’t seen coming, although you’d been warned about it over and over again by the informed people.

Now, years later, you’re still huffing and puffing about going the distance, while we have thousands of our young people dead and maimed.

Well, George, the people were beginning to see through you — not a hard job really, George, considering how shallow the water is.

Through all this, we’ve watched our rich get richer, our poor get poorer, and more and more people unable to cope and falling through the cracks. Our economy is in shambles, medical coverage is a joke and our schools are turning out near illiterates.

Finally comes your mishandling of Katrina. And now most of us feel as though you’re going to cap off your presidency with an attack on Iran.

My God, George, what a legacy!

Well, George, as Barnum said, “You can fool some of the people most of the time, and most of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all the people all the time.”

We’re catching on, George, and although we’ve been beaten to our knees, this is America, and although you and yours probably haven’t noticed it, there’s the beginning of a groundswell movement happening.

People have lost whatever faith they may have had in you, and this is why I’m thanking you.

You’ve gone too far, George, and you’ve tampered too much with what makes this country great — our spirit, George, our spirit.

And this spirit is beginning to manifest itself throughout all 50 states.

The Congress overturn was just the beginning.

Organizers are standing up and saying: enough! They’re taking matters into their own hands, and are raising money to start all kinds of projects for the poor, the sick, and the disheartened — all those you’ve deserted in your misguided quest as president.

Yes, George, we’re beginning to help ourselves — because we have to.

And it’s beginning to produce a spiritual regeneration that will pull us back together again and let America return to being a nation of hope and belief and togetherness, regaining the respect of the rest of the world.

You’ve done this for us, George.

So once again: thank you.

Oh, and by the way George: one more thing.

If the Democrats are smart enough to feel the rumbling — and can find a way to get a handle on it so they can put it on their bandwagon — you’ll witness a landslide election in their direction like has never been witnessed before.

We can only hope, George.

Trumpeter Leo Ball is an honor member of Local 802 and the administrator of the union’s payroll service, Legit 802. He can be reached at (212) 245-4802, ext. 175.