1. Prescott Bush (Senator (R) Conn. 1952-1963)

Like many US and UK bankers, Prescott Sheldon Bush, patriarch of the Bush clan, and partner in Brown Brothers Harriman, self-described as 'the world's largest private bank', grew rich in the 1930s, profiteering from Hitler's rise. His closest contact inside the Nazi war-machine was one Fritz Thyssen director (and scion) of a coal-and-steel empire central to the rearmament of Germany.Unlike many fellow bankers, Prescott continued to reap profits from his German industrial interests after the invasion of Poland in 1939 - technically no crime but morally repugnant to me since the Luftwaffe he was helping bankroll were dropping bombs on my parents, and soon, me. Good old Prescott kept nuzzling up to the Nazis all the way to August 1942, eight months after the US declaration of war in Dec 1941, a blatant violation of the Trading with the Enemy Act. In a word, treason.

Treason in time of war would, for ordinary folks, be punishable by death. Prescott escaped having his scrawny neck stretched because you don't top a Skull-and-Bones man. (Id est, you don't turn a Skull and Bones man into skull and bones). It helped that Presky was soon cooperating with the brand-new US intelligence services ratting out his former Nazi pals. Thus exhibiting another congenital Bush trait: nuzzling up to genocidal killers during their rise, then at the right moment turning on them and coming off smelling like roses.

Old Presky never smelt much like roses. It's suspected - no paper trail survived to prove it, natch - that he continued until war's end to profit from dealings with the enemy. Odd if not, that he emerged from the war even wealthier than he went in, thus founding the Bush family fortune. Any way you cut it, that ain't blue-blood money. Just blood money.

2. George H.W. Bush (US President 1988-1992)

As Vice-President, Prescott's second son George H.W. Bush was deeply enmeshed in the Iran-contra 'affair' of beloved memory. This involved selling 107 tons of missiles to a nation formally declared (by President Reagan) in July 1985 to be an 'enemy of the United States'. Bush's actions - later admitted in his own diaries - could well be judged an act of treason, as defined by the Constitution ('adhering to (U.S.) enemies and giving them aid and comfort'); a crime which, amazing to recount, would precisely replicate Bush pere's: trading with the enemy! How about that?

Of course like Papa, Bush fils was never tried for treason or anything close to it - he too being a Skull-and-Bones man. But he was faithful to the other hereditary Bush trait. Having fooled Americans into electing him President by posing as Reagan The Sequel, he turned on not one, but two old pals he'd nuzzled up to for years. First pizza-faced mini-dictator Manuel Noriega, and then mass-murderer Saddam Hussein, Reagan's made man in the epic struggle against Khomeini. Needless to say these well-timed betrayals didn't make him smell rose-like enough to get re-elected. But, thanks to the Carlyle Group's lavish rewards system for faithful service to the military-corporate complex while in public office, within a few years of his Presidential stint he was wealthier than ever. (I leave it to others to decide whether the Carlyle Group's profits are in any sense blood money).

3. George Walker Bush (President 2000-200?)

Any student of hereditary traits might conclude that one or more of GHW Bush's kids would have a tendency towards treason. Sure enough, his eldest son is now suspected of having authorized leaks of 'previously classified' material (aka 'material hurriedly declassified so you can use it to cover your ass, regardless of whom or what it threatens') very possibly including the identity of a CIA agent. Revealing a CIA agent's identity is illegal because it gives aid and comfort to the enemy by informing him that all the other people that person has dealings with may be threats to him. That's why officially it's an act of treason. Especially in time of war, a state in which we are currently residing. Such treason would for ordinary folks be punishable by death - and quite properly so. But GW Bush is a Skull and Bones man, so, well...you get the drift...

As for the nuzzling-up-to-dictators thing, it has to be conceded that W has so far only piggybacked on his Poppy's ex-nuzzlee, Saddam. But DNA will not be denied. Should W survive, it would be smart for Musharaf, Putin, Berlusconi, even ex-strongman Tony Blair to watch their backs.

But George W Bush will NOT survive. The hour will come to EXORCIZE the Bush curse. To punish this appalling scion of an appalling family, this idiot son of an idiot son of a Nazi-enabler, IMPEACH him for high crimes...etc. etc. etc.

I wish. But I have a sneaky feeling this Bush won't be punished any more than his Dad or Grandad were. Whether because the Dems win yet another glorious victory of principle this year - just like 2000, 2002, 2004 - or whether they get the majorities but in fine fragmented fashion let impeachment slip through their fingers, Bush petit-fils will survive to have disgraced the office of the Presidency even more than his pandering, race-baiting, ignoramus of a father and, thanks to the Carlyle Group's lavish rewards system for faithful service to the military-corporate complex while in public office, survive his Presidential stint wealthier than ever.

That couldn't happen could it? Surely not.