Bush without end?

As there's more than enough Monday-morning quarterbacking (Wednesday morning?) already out in the blogosphere in the wake of Kerry's failure to secure either the electoral or even the popular vote in the Presidential election, I will refrain from commenting on what was to many of us a very disappointing result except to point out three things:

1. Bush is now forced to clean up all of the messes he's made, starting with the botched war in Iraq (which is about to explode into civil war); at the same time Kerry and Edwards have been spared having to deal with no-win situation after no-win situation handed to them by the Bush Administration.

2. There is no better place to commiserate over the Dems' misfortunes than in Massachusetts, where locally we actually gained seats over the Republicans in the State legislature and no lawmakers ended up suffering for their support of gay marriage as the pundits were predicting.

3. At least we won the World Series this year and officially reversed the Curse - maybe it was too much to ask for more than one impossible dream this Fall!

That being said, I wonder if along with the rampant homophobia and Chicken Little paranoia about terrorism, people aren't voting for Bush simply because of his last name - which is after all what got him into national politics in the first place - out of some longing for something approaching an American royal family.

Had tragedy after tragedy not befallen another illustrious political clan it's arguable that the Presidents of the latter half of the 20th Century could have all had the last name Kennedy; I wonder if we aren't fated for the same phenomenon again, only with the Bushes this time.

If we are truly living now in an age of American Empire, the Bush family could end up our very own Julio-Claudian dynasty, complete with George "Emperor C-Plus Augustus" Bush, and his mother Barbara standing in for ice-cold matriarch Livia. Jeb would make a good Tiberius, George P. Bush (son of Jeb) a convincing Claudius, Neil could play the part of Caligula, and if the twins aren't Nero waiting in the wings, waiting to fiddle/party while Rome/D.C. burns all around them, I don't know what they are.

Yes, folks - it's "I, Dubious"! Coming to a formerly respected democratic Republic near you...