According to a September 19, 2004, New York Times 'Week in Review' article (Hannah Fairfield, "Is There a Family Resemblance?" sec. 4, p. 2), President George W. Bush and Senator John F. Kerry are distantly related, which is "typical for any two people with significant New England colonial ancestry," according to Gary Boyd Roberts, who is described as "the genealogical historian who compiled the links" between Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry, who are said to be ninth cousins twice removed. Their common ancestor is reportedly Edmund Reade, who lived from 1563 to 1623 in Wickford, Essex. Mr. Reade allegedly had two daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret Reade, from whom the respective Presidential incumbent and hopeful Bush and Kerry are descended. The Economist told no lie when it stated that Kerry "is cut from the same cloth" as the President, and he literally is. In fact, there are even more reported links between Connecticut-born, blue-blood Bush and Colorado-born (and Massachusetts-raised) blue-blood Kerry. They are tenth cousins once removed via their common ancestors Henry Herrick and Thomas Richards, and are tenth cousins twice removed via their common ancestor John Dwight, who were all natives of Massachusetts. And, via their respective English common ancestry, Bush and Kerry are eleventh cousins once removed, half-twelfth cousins once removed, twelfth cousins twice removed, and fourteenth cousins.*

No wonder their policies and opinions are infuriatingly similar . . . they're family!

*Respectively, these English common ancestors are reportedly Reverend Edward Bukleley, Richard Clapp, Henry Sherman, and John Manning.