I have uncovered the truth. It's all a plot by the Republicans. Just not the plot you think. But it's mad genius.
Everything disastrous about the George W. Bush administration - Iraq, Katrina, domestic spying, Terri Schiavo, nominating Harriet Miers, Dubai Ports, torture, Social Security privatization, no WMD's - all the actions that make the soul of the American public cringe in shame and pray that the last five years have been an episode of "Dallas" where everything has just been a bad dream - all of this has been a scheme by the Republican Party. All intentional. In the works for 30 years.
This has all been a plan by the Republican Party to rehabilitate Richard Nixon.
O ye who scoff, admit it: doesn't Richard Nixon look good now by comparison? Compared to stealing two elections and violating 750 laws with "signing letters," doesn't Watergate look like a college prank?
When Richard Nixon was forced to resign, becoming the only (okay, thus far) President to leave office early, it was a devastating blow to Republicans. Desperate to save a crumb of respectability, Republican patricians cried, "Just wait," that one day history would vindicate Nixon.
People thought they meant historians would rewrite reality and show the devious, venal, criminal Nixon to be a great leader. But even the most partisan Republican wasn't that foolish.
No, what party operatives had in mind was something else entirely. Something far more diabolical.
It was a ploy so dark and crafty it could only have been hatched by the CIA. And so it was, by former CIA director George H.W. Bush. The first President Bush.
The plan centered on George Bush One becoming President. Now, obviously, for someone so unqualified, that seemed an impossible task. But all that was needed was to make him Vice President, first. Team him with a lovable song-and-dance man. It's like a magician's sleight-of-hand trick: watch the right hand, folks, no reason to pay attention to the V.P. behind the curtain.
Part two of the plan. Get elected President. Far-less difficult for someone so unqualified once you're the sitting Vice President. And if you get to run against Michael Dukakis.
(Wait, you cry. If George HW Bush was so unqualified to be President, why did the Republicans pick him for their plan to rehabilitate Richard Nixon??! Because - GHW Bush had had the foresight to name his first son, "George"! More on this later...)
Part three of the plan. Win re-election, and...oooops. Why in heavens name do you think Republicans hated Bill Clinton so much? Because they didn't like his "values"?? Republicans don't like anyone's values. No, they hated Bill Clinton because he derailed their Rehabilitation Train.
That's why they impeached him. Not to "get back" at Democrats for trying to impeach Nixon. (Well...okay, not only that.) They wanted him out of office to return to schedule. Alas, it didn't work. So, they had to wait eight gut-gnawing years.
And so, 2000 finally came around. And that's where that whole "naming thing" came into play.
See, it's actually hard to get elected President. No, really, it is. Only 43 people have ever been elected out of hundreds of million. The odds are really small.
So, you have to start planning early. Anything can go wrong. There's only one thing you can count on - family. (Hey, sometimes Vito Corleone knew what he was talking about...) Eight Presidents out of 43 have been related to another. Those are good odds.
Now, imagine if it's the same name! With the same name it's easy to flummox folks into thinking they're sort of re-electing the same person. Never mind that no one knew much about George Bush the second. His mere name sounded like he should be President. Indeed, that's the only thing about him that sounded like he should be President.
Think about it. There was no other earthly reason for George W. Bush to run for President. His brother Jeb was the smart one. George W. was a screw-up. He likely used cocaine, got in car accidents, was a cheerleader, went AWOL from the National Guard, had to keep getting bailed out of all his businesses. And he's the Bush son they ran for President?????? Why?
1)Because he had the same name as the 41st President.
2)Because he specifically was a screw-up.
And there you go. That's the plot, 30 years in the making. Get an incompetent screw-up elected President so utterly unequal to the job that it constricts the blood vessels. Someone who will act against every core principle Americans hold sacred to their hearts - separation of church and state, freedom of the press, the right to privacy, the right of habeas corpus, the Geneva Convention. And on and on...
Someone so gaspingly incompetent he will ignore an Official Briefing that tells him who will attack the country and how. Start the first war in American history without provocation. Lose a major American city. And bring the glory of America, cherished around the world, into utter disgrace.
And then, compared to that, Richard Nixon will look better than he ever had. And will at long last be rehabilitated. And after 30 years, finally, you won't have Richard Nixon to kick around anymore!