Reply #9: A Republican Christmas Carol

[American Tragedy]

George W. Bush, you shall be visited by three phantoms, who in life were Republican icons.

Ghost of Christmas Past
Bush wakes up with a start, rubbing his eyes and trying to clear his head, until he sees a specter seated across from his bed, with a square jaw and wearing thick black spectacles. Barry Goldwater stands up and bitterly speaks of the gradual takeover of the Republican party by "kooks" on the religious right, that so alienated him in his final years as he clung to the pro-choice pro-gay conservatism of his time. He walks with Bush into a shadow of the current Senate, where Republicans finally have unprecedented control, and quietly remarks that it is indeed a Pyhrric victory in his view, as he fades into oblivion.

Ghost of Christmas Present
Bush awakens once more, in a trench with bullets flying over his head, surrounded in explosions and clouds of yellow gas. Dwight D Eisenhower grasps his arm and exposes Bush to shadows of his fearful experiences in the two world wars, and gently describes how it forged a grim understanding and profound distaste for warfare. He also addresses the later dilemma of appropriating money to defense industries or to domestic concerns that emerged during his presidency, invoking two of his greatest and most famous speeches. With these words, he foreshadows the snowballing problem, unaddressed by current politicians of either side, that threatens to consume the entire nation.

Ghost of Christmas Future
Bush once again rises, finding himself now in the Oval Office with a copy of the Washington Post on the desk, where a swarthy, jowly man is slumped in a chair across from him, scowling. Richard Nixon, never speaking, draws Bush through a montage of images of Nixon from the day of the Watergate break-in, to his worst and final days in the presidency. He silently gazes upon the moments when he made catastrophic errors, then points accusingly at Bush; perhaps, subtly insinuating what may become of Bush himself in the second term.