Hour gang
``You cannot fight against the future," William Gladstone famously said. ``Time is on our side."
With all due respect to the late British prime minister, how times have changed. Whose side is time really on these days, one wonders. Does it wait for no man -- or all the president's men?
Consider the Backwards Bush key chain, a $9 novelty item that features a built-in, reverse-ticking timepiece and what seems to be a straightforward message: I Cannot Wait for the Bush Presidency to Be Over.
Set to count down the days, hours, minutes, and seconds until Jan. 20, 2009, the day George W. Bush leaves office, the clock also comes in wall-mounted, desktop, and screensaver versions. It is the brainchild of Vince Ponzo , 32, a Boston College alum , who came up with the idea soon after Bush was re-elected two years ago.
``I was devastated," recalls Ponzo. He was counting down the days to a job switch in the finance industry when the idea for a Bush-themed clock ``popped into my head," as he puts it.
Ponzo and his girlfriend, Meredith Stricker , seized the day. Within weeks, they'd launched a website with a Bush countdown clock that could be downloaded for free. After thousands did just that, says Ponzo, he and Stricker realized their idea's merchandising potential and found a company that manufactures key chains for baby showers, retirement parties, and other occasions. The couple's vision-thing turned into a marketable curio.
Backwards Bush key chains went on sale before the second Bush inaugural, in January 2005 -- and took off with every downtick in the president's poll numbers, according to Ponzo.
``It was a nice visual aid for people who wanted to watch the days tick away," he says by phone from Manhattan. Many Bush items such as bumper stickers and T-shirts are boringly static or X-rated, he notes.
Of the 50,000 key chains sold to date, most have undoubtedly wound up in Democrat-friendly hands. Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico reportedly owns two. Bill and Hillary Clinton each received one from an Arkansas friend. Historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and ``Colbert Report" host Stephen Colbert have flashed theirs in public.
As Ponzo's website (backwardsbush.com) boasts, ``They've been used as fund-raising tools, birthday gifts, gags, bribes, and as proof to the rest of the world that America isn't entirely made up of idiots."
Imagine Ponzo's surprise, then, when US News & World Report ran a brief article this month about White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten giving countdown clocks to key Bush aides. Why would he do that? ``As a reminder to myself that we have a lot of days left," Bolten explained to the magazine. ``We have ample time to accomplish many things but not so many that we can waste a single day." The president was totally on board, Bolten added without a trace of irony.
Says Ponzo, ``That took us by surprise. Although one version of the clock does have a Bush picture on it that's not so offensive looking." A case of cluelessness inside the Beltway? ``More like they probably just didn't care," guesses Ponzo. ``Plus, if you peel off the picture, it really could be a motivational device."
A White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore said yesterday that Bolten was ``unaware that Democrats were using countdown clocks too" and said the clocks hearken back to the 2000 presidential campaign, when they were given to Bush staffers to mark the time until Election Day.
``Maybe the Democrats heard of this practice and copied it," Lawrimore suggested.
So is time of the essence, as the West Wing crowd believes? Or does it heal all wounds, as others hope? The answer could be clear in 843 days and counting. Providing everyone's batteries last that long.
JOSEPH P. KAHN 
