George W. Bush's greatest gift to this country, the color-coded terrorist warning system, is going away forever. The government is starting to phase it out this week. For now, let's look back at this system's one great contribution to society.

The rainbow terror system of fear is among the most useless things the United States government introduced after 9/11, lodged somewhere between "multiple ongoing endless wars" and "wars that we haven't launched yet."

But there were good times, too. As Bush's former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge acknowledged in his book last year, he was pressured by other members of the Bush administration to raise the terror alert level in the run-up to the 2004 election.

So maybe it was useless overall. But at least it helped get George W. Bush reelected in 2004. You take what you can get, you know?

It'll be gone by April.

[Image of then-Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge introducing the color-coded threat system in 2002 via AP]