Normally I hate sports analogies, but I feel I must make one. As the Bush administration mercifully draws to an end, so does another hated regime that is also a study in abject failure: The New York Knicks under head coach/GM Isiah Thomas.

After suffering through another season watching the Knicks, I have come to the conclusion that the worst franchise in sports has much in common with the worst presidency in our history. That Isiah Thomas and his boss James Dolan have chosen to mimic the Bush/Cheney junta with similarly abysmal results has been one of the NBA's most embarrassing stories for the last few years. (I know that sports teams are unimportant and a ridiculous thing for a grown man to care about, but I do care, so indulge me.) Paranoia, fiscal insanity, opaque operations, embarrassing lawsuits and an endless parade of debacles mark this epoch of Knick history and also the American presidency. When most would have had the grace and dignity (or at the very least the shame and horror) to resign and retire to play golf or shoot small birds, or whatever it is phenomanally wealthy folks do in the closing days of the American empire, these fuckheads have hung on to the bitter end. Here are some Bush/Knicks points of comparison:

1) Just like Bush, James Dolan is a spoiled rich kid, an ex-drunk who inherited vast wealth from a successful father and once he got hold of the family business took less than a decade to systematically ruin what took generations to build.

2) Isiah Thomas, just like Dick Cheney, is an Iago-like figure, constantly whispering in Dolan's ear about some new enemy, usually some member of the media who has reported some unpleasant truth about the Knicks. Is there any doubt that Thomas would have water-boarded ex-Knicks coach Larry Brown if given the chance?

3) Similar to Cheney's exhaustive search for a VP candidate, when the Knicks needed a coach, Isiah decided he was the only man for the job. (It should be noted that Thomas had fired the three previous coaches.) Also like Cheney, Isiah has always failed upwards — wherever he has landed he has made himself millions of dollars but left chaos and ruin in his wake. Isiah bankrupted the CBA, left the Raptors a dysfunctional mess and has proven to be a disaster as head coach. Moreover, like Cheney, Isiah wears many masks to disguise the venom that lurks underneath his public persona. Of course, Cheney discarded his pleasant facade years ago but in the early days of his career he used to at least pretend to care.

4) Dolan fired Marv Albert, the best play by play man in the business — hell, maybe ever. His crime: candidly describing to the television audience the horror of being forced to watch the Knicks take the court. A host of Bush administration folks have been forced to fall on their swords for the crime of speaking the truth, notably Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neil for admitting that the Bush tax-cut was insane and Gen. Shinseki for telling the truth about the number of troops needed in Iraq. The list goes on.

5) Approval ratings. Just as Bush and Cheney enjoy historically low poll numbers, the hostility is palpable when the boos cascade down Madison Square Garden every time the Knicks play. The people simply have had enough. The revulsion is epidemic. The feeling is akin to the last scene in Dangerous Liaisons when Glenn Close is hissed at by everyone in the opera house, or like at the height of the Red Scare when the Army attorney echoed the feelings of the American people and told Sen. McCarthy "You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"

I’m sure there are more points where these two loathsome regimes meet on the Axis of Ineptitude, but my point is the managerial style of both these reigns of error should be taught as studies in executive failure. At least there's some comfort in the fact that Isiah will be gone soon enough. But while the damage wrought by the Bush and Cheney administration will take a generation to undo, at least for the Knicks there's always next season.