A discussion of the upcoming film "Frost/Nixon" then takes us on a completely different tangent

I not long ago saw an advance screening of "Frost/Nixon," Ron Howard's adaptation of Peter Morgan's ("The Queen," "The Last King of Scotland," "Longford") stage drama about the infamous interviews British TV personality David Frost conducted with Richard Nixon after he resigned the Presidency in disgrace. Nixon and his handlers thought Frost to be a lightweight (not that they were wrong), and so didn't think his questions would be particularly hard-hitting or, even if they were, Nixon could filibuster his way out of them. (Had Fox News existed at the time, he would've just gone there.)

Initially, I particularly enjoyed Michael Sheen's ("The Queen") wittily supercilious turn as Frost - Frank Langella, as Nixon, sounded more like Walter Cronkite than Nixon early on. Halfway through, however, Langella takes over the film, humanizing Nixon to an extent you might not consider possible.

Morgan's kind of a genius in using history to echo the current day (his Golden Globe acceptance speech got played off when he compared England's protests of Queen Elizabeth's not acknowledging Princess Diane's death to - well, we won't know, because he got drowned out, but we can guess), so sitting through the film, I couldn't shake the feeling that this is as close as we'll come to seeing George W. Bush confess to any mistakes or wrongdoing.

But a guy can dream, and so I started thinking about which of our light-entertainment presenters (as they're called in England) might be both a) acceptable to the President and b) up to the task of interviewing Bush and maybe worming some sort of confession out of the guy.

Ellen DeGeneres. He'd do the dancing thing with her, but that's about it.

Oprah Winfrey. Uh, she endorsed Obama.

Jay Leno. Bush'd probably go for it, but Leno's too keen on being liked to do anything but lob a few softballs.

David Letterman. Letterman asked John McCain about his association with G. Gordon Liddy, which was his clever way of calling b.s. on McCain's harping on the William Ayers question. Oh, and he's called Bush a "pinhead" a lot. So that's out.

Jon Stewart. Get serious.

Stephen Colbert. Only if Colbert agrees never to break from his Bush-adoring character during the interview. And not even then.

Conan O'Brien. Bush would get too distracted by Conan's hair to answer any questions.

Which brings us to the one guy who might provide the planet with the answers it so desires, a man who could bond with Bush over the mutual love of sports and pretzels and barbecues and oft-puerile humor and then maybe have the wherewithal to ask a few good questions:

Jimmy Kimmel, our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.

(I couldn't decide which picture to use here, so to heck with it - let's use 'em both.)

Who would you like to do President Bush's exit interview?