by Ross Levine

Any dye-in-the-wool pundit can look back at the passing year and carp about what went wrong, but it takes considerably more perspicacity to gaze at the year-to-come and figure out what's about to go wrong -- or, given last November's election -- "right." The following are a few off-the-cuff predictions for 2003:

Osama Bin Laden appears to have more lives than a cat as rumors of his demise and reincarnation persist throughout the coming year. Neither he nor his body is found, but in May a self-proclaimed ex-girlfriend of the mass-murderer surfaces in Istanbul pleading compassion for her former lover: "When you grow up with 51 brothers and sisters, you end up doing pretty crazy things to get attention." Questioned by authorities, the woman has no new information concerning Bin Laden's whereabouts. Later in the year, Al Jazeera releases yet another audiotape, this one with a voice purportedly Bin Laden's telling a psychotherapist that somehow he "doesn't feel wanted" anymore. The White House dismisses the tape as Democratic Party propaganda.

Forty-nine states in the union declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy. This means more potholes, worse schools, less health care and higher taxes. Governors take to the airwaves to blame the feds who tell them to eat cake. A psychological malaise settles over the nation, and the economy sinks further into the sludge of consumer diffidence. With only casino-cushioned Indian nations in the black, states begin borrowing wampum at inflated interest. By the end of the year, loan defaults by state governments put nearly 75% of the United States back into the hands of its original owners. Only Mississippi avoids the fiscal meltdown, thanks to tourist revenue from the new Trent Lott Museum of White Christian Persecution in Pascagoula.

Regime change finally comes to Iraq in late winter when Saddam Hussein slips on a wad of chewing gum left behind by a U.N. weapons inspector in one of the presidential palaces. The resultant fatal concussion creates an immediate power vacuum in Baghdad as well as Washington, as Bush and crew suffer a severe case of coitus interruptus. Members of the U.N. General Assembly accuse the U.S. of sticky sabotage as Bush again turns to Henry Kissinger to head a team to oversee free elections in Iraq. Kissinger accepts but later resigns when pressed for further clarification of his genocidal tendencies. The job falls to former Secretary of State James Baker, who claims he's "fixed elections before and will be happy to do it again." In a related move, the Pentagon breathes a sigh of relief that Operation Desert Diversion never takes place. U.S.-schooled commanders had been mistakenly poised to overrun Greece.

With Iraq's political climate in turmoil, and chaos continuing in Venezuela, oil prices climb in April to near $50 a barrel causing SUV sales to "tank." The government announces stricter fuel-efficiency standards for light trucks -- 5 mpg starting in 2024 -- but gas prices continue to escalate. The Republican-controlled Congress immediately votes to permit oil exploration in the arctic, setting off an eponymous AN-"WAR" as oil company drill teams and environmental activists stream into the 49th state. The crisis finally abates in early June, when Saudi Arabia mysteriously heightens oil production. Only later is it revealed that the Saudi deus ex machina stemmed from a secret U.S. promise to release billions in Saudi assets frozen since September 11th. The crude-for-currency scandal becomes known as the "Laundering of Arabia," and has National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice explaining, NRA-style, that "money doesn't fund terrorism, people do."

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict takes an ironic turn as Israel completes its 200-plus-mile security fence, known to critics as the "Matzohball Line," along the northwestern boundary of the West Bank. Aging Holocaust survivors, remembering life behind barbed wire in Europe, march on the Knesset, awakening a large portion of the Israeli public to the fact that apartheid may not work as well in Israel as it did in South Africa. On the other side of the fence, Yassar Arafat, holed up by Israel for the umpteenth time at his headquarters in Ramallah, decides to improve his public image through a series of Botox injections. Although he does indeed look comelier upon emerging from isolation, it is soon revealed that what his aides believed to be Botox was actually plastic explosives belonging to a Hamas operative in Arafat's employ. Now he can't raise an eyebrow without risking self-annihilation, and Israeli officials acquire their most credible reason yet not to bring him to the negotiating table.

As the Middle East continues to preoccupy the U.S. government, the deteriorating situation in North Korea remains a blip outside the Administration's radar. Except for a few schoolyard threats from Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, the U.S. seems content to bluster impotently as Pyongyang persists with its nuclear aspirations. Washington, however, uses secret diplomacy to force China into wielding influence over its rogue stepchild, and by early summer, thanks to some quick work by the U.S. firm Clonaid, China's new leader, Mao Tse Tung, gets the North Koreans back in line.

In a test conducted by the Government Accounting Office (GAO) in July, a classified memo sent to the newly formed Department of Homeland Security (DHS) states that terrorists are planning an imminent attack on the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri. The memo, sent directly to the FBI, is funneled through the Department of Defense (DOD) before making its way to the CIA. The CIA forwards the information to the Border Patrol which relays it to the Department of Transportation (DOT). From there it journeys to top brass at the Coast Guard before winding up with officials of the INS. It is then channeled to the National Air Transportation Safety Board (NATSB) which in turn informs FEMA, the Secret Service and the bio-terrorism division of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Finally, just four and a half months later, Tom Ridge orders St. Louis city officials to evacuate the Gateway Arch until further notice. Reporters with questions about the GAO results believe it when told that Tom Ridge cannot be reached for comment.

Housing prices across the nation continue to rise through the first quarter of the year, with the average home in first-tier markets hitting $400,000 in April. With real estate the only bright spot in a still-sputtering economy, the Fed is loath to see mortgage rates rise and takes numerous artificial steps to keep them depressed. The effort backfires when rates sink so low that banks and other lenders decide they'd rather not part with their money, making loans virtually unavailable and sending home prices into a nosedive. The heat is on both Bush and Greenspan as media spin-meisters peg the economic morass a "Double-Dope Recession."

An ailing Fidel Castro finally takes his revolution to the pearly gates leaving Cuba ready to reorganize as an American-style democracy. Miami's Cuban population, after weeks of celebration, is ready to head home to reclaim its ancestral legacy. Fearing that a hemorrhage of conservative Cubans from Florida may jeopardize the chances of a Republican victory in 2004, Bush issues an executive order declaring that all American citizens returning to Cuba must relinquish their stateside assets and have all their U.S. property holdings expropriated. When protests erupt over the ironic decree, Bush sends Colin Powell to Miami to explain that the man he works for is not a Castro-like dictator but a true believer in the American way. The Democrats, seeing a chance to get Cuban voters on their side, quickly take up the "Florida Libre" cause.

Supreme Court Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist finally calls it quits in June, putting an end to over 30 years of regressive decisions on the big bench. As his replacement, Bush nominates Henry Kissinger who accepts but later steps down when pressed for clarification of his genocidal tendencies. Bush next tries Robert Bork, causing confusion amongst younger voters who wonder why a Republican president would nominate an Icelandic pop star to the high court. Bork, who didn't quite make it to the Supremes in '87 when Reagan tried to stick him there, attempts to take advantage of the confusion by wearing a swan dress to his Senate confirmation hearing. Democrats, again raising the specter of Watergate, quash his nomination; Bush then brings in an anti-abortion, anti-environment energy-industry-insider from Texas who is immediately confirmed. As Dick Cheney is heard to remark afterwards, "give 'em two great whites and they'll gladly take a hammerhead ..."

Strom Thurmond turns 101. No Republicans come to his birthday party.

04 January 03