... [T]here is a school of thought that hopes Mr. Bush gets a second term, and I've already enrolled in that program.

I don't know whether it is my immune system's defensive reaction to Bush flu -- the shiver one feels at the thought of opening the papers to front-page pictures of a smiling George W. on Wednesday morning -- but I have already rationalized a Bush second term as serving my global interests. I've always subscribed to the notion that an empire is at its most vulnerable at the height of its power.

It is an immutable law of nature that condemns the powerful to overweening ambition: Think of the Roman Empire, Napoleon, Conrad Black and the New York Yankees. What with that monstrous budget deficit midwifing the economic miracle of a jobless recovery, the loud commitment to policing the world at any cost, and a seemingly implacable addiction to market forces in every public sector from education to health care -- another four years of Bush flu may be tough medicine. But it might, just might, weaken his country and make the rest of us stronger.

On the other hand, John Kerry might, just might, pull America from the brink of self-destruction -- that is, if he succeeds in balancing the budget at the same time as extending the reach of social programs. He just might succeed in getting the rest of the world to help America police the world, to continue to float America's trillion-dollar debt, to pull us all out of our irrational anti-American senses and persuade us that if America sneezes, we might all catch a cold.

Whatever the outcome, I'm going to get myself a flu jab.