MSNBC co-anchors compare departing Bushes to Romanovs, sort of

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As President Bush and President-elect Barack Obama left the White House together, the following discussion took place between MSNBC co-anchors Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow:

Olbermann: It can’t be possible in some respects that it’s all going to come to its climax in an hour, a minute and 10 seconds.

Matthews: Two or three hours from now, we’ll have a brand-new president. He will really be the president. Bush will not be president.

Maddow: Bush will be on his way to Waco, with Karl Rove and Karen Hughes. Which is where he’s going today.

Olbermann: Well, that...

Maddow: Remarkable.

Matthews: You don’t send me flowers anymore. (Laughs) No, it’s going to be like the Romanovs too, and I mean that. There’s a sense here that they are fallen from grace, that they are not popular. That the whole family will now go into retreat.

Olbermann: Not exactly like the Romanovs.

Matthews: Not like the Romanovs in the end, but there’s a sense of retreat here.

— Maria Elena Fernandez