So, we are now teetering on the brink of a narrow Bush victory. Don’t you people ever listen? And don’t go saying Nader’s spoiling Florida. Gore has done WAY better in Florida than anyone expected him to. Anyway, it’s unfair and inaccurate to presume that ALL Nader voters would have otherwise voted for Gore. The totals in Nader’s “strong states” show that Nader peformed well BELOW expectations – liberals on the teeter-totter fell over on Gore’s side. And then the Bush voters came over and pushed down on the higher end and made the lower end fly up and clobber the wafflers in the jaw. And Buchanan, who was standing in line by the slide, … um. What was I talking about?

Ah, yes. Silly American voters. In the spirit of prognosticating punditry, I’ve decided to make a few predictions for four years of a Bush presidency.

• Dubya’s pets, one dog and two cats, will become lovable national mascots and will on occasion meet world leaders in Dubya’s stead.
• Bush and Cheney will bathe in the blood of their enemies. Also with the blood of their enemies they will paint a barn, send relief packages to Transylvania, and prepare a delightful linguini dish.
• Bush will refer to pasta solely as “noodles”.
• An embarrassing picture of Dubya will be published on an April 2001 cover of TIME in which Bush’s head is tipped over, his eyes are rolled back into his skull, and a long streamer of drool falls from his mouth. Possible headline: “Can Gene Therapy Help?”
• Dick Cheney will suffer a fatal heart attack on the floor of Congress as he is about to cast the deciding vote on whether or not the government should condemn homosexuality. He will clutch his chest and spin around comically before he falls to the ground, clutching a tiny American flag, his lesbian daughter’s name inaudibly escaping his lips. The movie version, starring Richard Dreyfuss and released the following year, will win six Oscars.
• Dubya will choose Joe Lieberman to replace Cheney. Lieberman will be flattered but decline. Dubya’s second choice, George H. W. Bush, will happily step back into the role.
• Bill and Hillary Clinton will stay married, for the sake of her career this time. Chelsea will enjoy a short stint guest-hosting “Talk Soup” on E!. Playboy will offer her a giant truck full of cash to pose nude. She will make fun of them.
• Paula Jones, continuing to have trouble with her legal bills, will appear in a hard-core porn video with John Wayne Bobbitt.
• Al Gore and Bob Dole will co-host a politically-themed variety show featuring music, skits, and their own dry, witty banter. The show will be cancelled by FOX after four episodes. The reruns will continue to air on FX for another three months.
• Gore will authorize the publication of the un-retouched version of his ROLLING STONE cover photo. Women everywhere will swoon and purchase detachable shower heads.
• California will be hit with a series of massive earthquakes. The result will be a natural geographical divide along the coast, and the government will rule that California should now be two states. The states are named “Alive California” and “Dead California”.
• Democrats and Republicans will say nasty things about the other’s behavior when they themselves did the exact same things last time.
• Ralph Nader will chill out and lay low for awhile. Michael Moore will win the Green Party nomination in 2004. He will name Nader his VP candidate. Winona LaDuke will continue to be wherever the hell she was during the 2000 campaign.
• Palestinians will hate Americans even more than they used to. Eastern Europeans will hate Americans even more than they used to. The Chinese will hate Americans even more than they used to. Former Soviet Union Republic residents will hate Americans even more than they used to. Western Europeans, Mexicans, Africans, South Americans, Israelis, Canadians, Arabs, the Japanese, and everyone in lower Asia will hate Americans even more than they used to. Austrailians will continue to like us okay.
• With Austrailia abstaining, every nation in the world will agree to wage war against America simultaneously. The war will be characterized in the press as a “conflict resolution effort”. Our armed forces, having dwindled in number, will require that a draft be reinstated. However, every single 18 to 24 year-old male will be able to avoid service by pretending to be flamboyantly gay.
• Feeling pressure from all sides, Bush, his family, and his closest advisors will board a spacecraft and flee the planet, eventually setting up a colony on Titan, a moon of Saturn. The presidency will revert to the Bush family dog, who is accidentally left behind in a heartbreaking scene.
• Tedward Kennedy will emerge as the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nod for 2004. He will be assassinated the next day. In the next week, other assassination victims will include Supreme Court Justice Kennedy, former MTV VJ Kennedy, actor Jamie Kennedy, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. People will be really confused.
• “Survivor” winner Richard Hatch easily snags the 2004 GOP presidential nod, largely on a platform of not being naked. Runner-up Rudy Boesch will get the veep nod. Sue Hawk will be mentioned as a possible Secretary of Truck Driving.
• Jesse Ventura, with nothing but a machine gun, camoflauge pants, and a hunting knife, will make the world Safe Once Again For Democracy.