2009, here we come!

This is the best news I've heard in a long, long time. Seems that GWB's already started "thinking" about what to do after he's not president anymore. So it looks like here's still at least an outside chance he won't declare himself emperor for life. At least if he's got a say in the matter. But if Cheney says he's got to stay, he stays.

He'd be a really poor emperor, if it came to that. For starters, the guy looks awkward and uncomfortable in anything fancier than jeans and a t-shirt. Just look at that silly blue tie he insists on wearing all the time, or the cheap, ill-fitting suits. Real emperors need regalia, and the regalia needs to look good on them. I realize there's a minor fashion model in the family, but GWB didn't inherit whatever genes are involved in that. He's certainly got the absolute power thing nailed, although it's debatable how much of that's really his idea, and how much he's a creature of other people's ambitions. Maybe it's more accurate to describe him as a late pharaoh or sultan, the product of many generations of careful inbreeding, utterly at the mercy of ambitious high priests or grand viziers, i.e. Uncle Dick. On top of everything else, he's failed in the primary duty of all dynastic despots, which is to produce a legitimate male heir. Instead, we've got two daughters, and twins, no less. We'd have to split the country in half, King Lear style, east vs. west this time instead of north vs. south, just for variety's sake. Jenna and Barbara would probably end up marrying either petty Eurotrash royals, or Kennedys, which is roughly the same thing. Then we could have a few decades of wars of succession, starting out with Prince Sven of the Western States pitted against Prince Luigi of the East. Then it's discovered that the late Emperor had an illegitimate, and, er, non-caucasian biological son in New Orleans (dating back to those fun times he reminisced about post-Katrina). He raises an army, and we have a three-way battle over who gets to be the next Emperor. About this time, aggressive neighboring countries take an interest and start annexing territory, until the rival Bushes are left with nothing but Monaco-like coastal enclaves in Houston and Kennebunkport.

Recent studies have indicated that fighter pilots are far more likely to have daughters than sons. I think the theory's that it's got something to do with g-forces and fragile Y chromosomes. So maybe, just maybe, George's otherwise-unremarkable Air National Guard service really did some good for the country after all.