The new musical that's moved into Washington — New All-Star Cast! Awesome Dance Numbers! — has bumped the old attractions off the avenue. The wax museum of Ann Coulter, the Fox vaudeville acts, the woofing of Rush and O'Reilly — they're playing the VFW circuit now. When Barack and Michelle walked down Pennsylvania Avenue on inauguration day, you could tell that the photographers are not going to be lying in wait for Sarah Palin just now. You heard the sudden sucking sound of vanishing celebrity.

If you travel around by commercial jet, you've seen formerly famous people waiting at baggage claim, people who once had an entourage and who now tote their own baggage. There he is, standing right smack next to you — Dan Rather, Hulk Hogan, Walter Mondale, some old rock 'n' roller. You smile and say hello. Maybe you ask what brand of hair product they use.

The American people tend to be painfully courteous to the ex-celebrity. They might stare at Mr. Giuliani and his enormous incisors but they're not likely to say, "Glad ya lost, ya big weasel" or "How's your pal Bernie Kerik doing these days?" Americans assume it is terribly painful to have once been a big enchilada and now be a mere taquito.

I speak as a recovering celebrity myself. You're too young to remember, but 20-some years ago, aboard a flight to Rawalpindi, I took over the controls of a 747 whose crew was incapacitated by bad sushi and yours truly landed the craft at Pago Pago despite no pilot training and a poor sense of spatial relationships, then I swam through shark-infested waters with a rope in my teeth that enabled a tug to tow the plane past the reef to safe harbor. Front-page stuff and I was on all the talk shows and now I'm subletting a motor home in Anaheim. But I have reinvented myself as a guru, and my book, "The Wisdom of Failure," is getting a lot of buzz. It says that defeat is an opportunity. I think it's going to be very big.

If you were met with defeat in November, there is no reason you can't retool and sell diamond rings on the Shopping Channel. Or found a megachurch in Colorado Springs.

America loves second and third acts. A boxer retires from the ring and starts peddling grills. There is no reason to let a trademark languish just because the product becomes passé. Get a makeover.

I am envisioning Rush Limbaugh as an actor in movies, a sort of Nero Wolfe supersleuth who, though he never leaves his luxurious New York brownstone and his rare orchid collection, uses his superior powers of ratiocination to locate the missing uranium bars in the cellars beneath the great mosque in Tehran. I envision Ann Coulter as someone who can revive the professional female wrestling franchise.

And then there is the Former Occupant. I am envisioning him as a late-night TV host. The man has a definite resemblance to Johnny Carson, and the American people would enjoy watching him kid around with Angelina or Beyoncé. People would tune in every night to reassure themselves that he's not in charge of anything anymore and that would be wonderful. Simply wonderful.

Reach Garrison Keillor at (Unknown address).

Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" airs 6 to 8 p.m. Saturday on radio station KHPR 88.1 and 6 to 8 p.m. Sunday on KIPO 89.3. His column appears Wednesday online at www.honoluluadvertiser.com/opinion and in Sunday's Focus section.