Not that we’re obsessed or anything, but George W. Bush’s debate debacle last Thursday illustrates the hazards of the Saturn Return so elegantly that we have to say it again. On Friday, October 1st, 2004, the day that the pundits came out in force to say that John Kerry hit a knock-out punch against the commander-in-chief, Saturn returned EXACTLY to Bush’s natal Saturn placement. When Bush was born on July 6th, 1946, Saturn sat at 26 degrees of Cancer. On Friday, Saturn came back around to 26 degrees of Cancer for the first time since August 1975: Bush’s first Saturn Return. Although the facts are somewhat sketchy, sources say that the early seventies were Bush’s hardest-partying years. Bush’s natal Saturn is in his 12th house of secrets, lies, and addiction. His alcoholism and those years of missing-in-action resonate perfectly with his chart.

In our book, Surviving Saturn’s Return, we repeat ad nauseum that the Saturn Return is hard work. Nobody seems to know this better than Bush. He repeatd that telling phrase a total of 11 times during Thursday’s debate.

Despite the Machiavellian strategies of the Bush campaign (maliciously maligning Kerry over the last few weeks) Bush could not help but engage in a karmic self-undoing of the highest order. If he refuses to answer to the subterfuge of his first Saturn Return and all the years since, Bush will be hard-pressed to survive his second. It bears repeating: there’s no side-stepping when it comes to Saturn.