A group of British genealogists claim that the US presidential candidate with the best ties to royalty wins the election. On that basis, they’re calling it for John Kerry.
After months of research into Kerry’s ancestry, Burke’s Peerage, experts on British aristocracy, reported on Monday that the Vietnam War veteran is related to all the royal houses of Europe and can claim kinship with Russian czar Ivan the Terrible, a previous emperor of Byzantium and the shahs of Persia.
Well, that certainly makes up my mind.
Kerry is a descendant of bygone kings of England, Henry III and Henry II, and is distantly related to Richard the Lionheart, who led the third Crusade in 1189, according to Burke’s.
No doubt that will establish his foreign relations creds with the Europeans and Muslim world.
Kerry also has relations back to France, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, not to mention to the first governor of Massachusetts, John Winthrop.
Bush, on the other hand, though impressive enough in his blue blood to beat Al Gore, just can’t muster the royalty to win against Kerry.
Similar research carried out on Bush ahead of the 2000 presidential race showed that he beat Al Gore in the royal stakes, claiming kinship with Britain’s Queen Elizabeth as well as with Kings Henry III and Charles II of England.
I hope that makes this November’s decision easier for everyone …
(via Hit&Run)
I follow the World Series rule: If the American League team wins, the Democrats get in, and vice versa.
The rule is also reversible: In 1996, the Atlanta Braves opened the World Series with a 12-1 win over the Yankees. My friends thought the Yankees were overmatched and sure to lose. I took there bets, secure in the knowledge that just as Bob Dole would never beat Bill Clinton, the Braves would never beat the Yankees that year.
I won that bet.