The curse of the nanny is almost routine these days. No White House team can dodge it as the vengeful virus spreads. Exit one director of homeland security designate in the time it takes to change a diaper - or fast track a visa through the Home Office. (If Osama were really as bright as people say, he'd be training squads of suicide nannies even now.) But do not, perhaps, follow the spin here too swiftly. Pause over the disaster of Bernie Kerik before hurrying on.Kerik, unlike most other nannygate victims, isn't some busy lady lawyer juggling private practice and a family in distracted desperation. Long ago, he was Rudy Giuliani's driver, the chauffeur who became chief of Rudy's NYPD, the capo di tutti copos in charge for 9/11, the mate the ex-mayor recommended when he turned down the homeland job himself. Law enforcement and detection are his professional business, illegal immigration and proper payment of taxes his natural concerns.But he wasn't a natural choice - in experience or diplomacy - to run a great umbrella department of state. There were other confirmation issues for him, too: a $6.2m stock option killing on stun guns, for instance, or the jokes about Caligula's police horse. The Senate hearings were always going to be tough, even before he "discovered" a hole in nanny's paperwork. And there's the crucial, overarching point.Kerik was a flawed candidate from the beginning, selected sloppily from a lacklustre field. As he departs, the Oval Office sucks its collective thumb. Though Tom Ridge, the incumbent director, announced long before the election that he'd be quitting (he wasn't making enough money to keep his family in the manner accustomed), the search for a successor has been a continuing botch. Which, in turn, sends an early, dissonant message about Bush's second term.Only six weeks after his victory, the vibrations continue euphoric going on triumphalist. Depressed Democrats wonder if they could ever win again. Pundits ponder theses about eternal Republican hegemony. Talk is of more Bush power, more neoconservative solutions, more variations on a narrow and occasionally alarming agenda. But is that quite what unfolding events tell us?The White House - as recommended by the 9/11 commission - got its director of national intelligence last week, who'll supervise a $40bn annual budget and sit atop the CIA, FBI and assorted agencies. It didn't, however, get these plans through Congress without a grinding argument, with Republicans leading the charge. And it hasn't got a star candidate for that top job either.  For all the hot air rising, the great umbrellas of civil defence and proactive intelligence are still folded, while around Mr Bush's cabinet table talented operators like Colin Powell, and many less formidable figures, depart. That's natural, perhaps. They're tired or bored or anxious to write a book. But the interesting thing is who survives: not just Donald Rumsfeld, but notably underpowered performers like the treasury secretary, John Snow. No one, it seems, is very keen on joining this supposedly refreshed administration. No one (least of all Rudy Giuliani) sees their future there.That's no surprise when you think about it, though. For there is no future that Bush can offer beyond four more declining years. Senator Joe Biden is already signalling he'll be a Democratic contender in 2008; Hillary Clinton openly ponders her options; likely governors clear their diaries and form little campaign teams. This race never stops, this race is never won. And George Bush has voluntarily relinquished his right to a say on its course.He let (or perhaps was powerless to resist) Dick Cheney be his running mate again. Cheney is not a possible candidate in 2008. He is thus the only vice-president serving a second (fixed) term president whose career automatically stops when the boss stops. Nixon ran to succeed Eisenhower, Bush senior to succeed Reagan, Gore to succeed Clinton. While there was that prospect of continuity there was also some hope of continuing Washington employment. But, four years hence, all the old Bush boys get their cards.That matters hugely. It matters if you're James Sensenbrenner, the Republican chairman of the House judiciary committee, who caused Bush so much grief over his national intelligence director - and vows to cause much more. What has he to lose? He'll be there when George W is back at the ranch forever. It matters if you're a Republican hopeful or might-be in some governor's mansion from Sacramento to Albany. You can't keep quiet about things that go wrong; you have to be your own critical man. It matters because obvious recruits like Rudy send their horse instead.Fixed terms (as Tony Blair may soon discover) carry their own curse in diminished clout. Doubly fixed terms of the Bush-Cheney variety grow debilitated even faster. Look at the highlights so far. Condoleezza Rice goes to State, but leaves only a number two behind to advise the president. Snow lingers to sweet talk the budget deficit; Rumsfeld, 72, stays to sort out his own mess; Porter Goss, already three years beyond the new Whitehall retiring age, takes over the CIA; Bernie Kerik goes back to the ironing board. Terrorism may have helped win an election, but it's all low priority now.None of this makes the next four years a kinder, gentler time; least of all a more competent one. But it isn't the irresistible force of instant legend; it isn't a masterful George and obedient servants. It is Donald and Dick and Johnny and Condi (just like Tony and Gordon and David). It is a curse beyond nanny, the curse of exhaustion and ambition and greed and hard calculation.