Hi, everybody!
Please bear with me, because I'll be telling you something that's going to sound absolutely insane. Though I won't get into the science of it--it'd take forever, and I'm more of a literary person--I will, however, explain the basics. I am, for lack of a better term, a "fictionaut": a real person who's made their way into a fictional universe. It's a top-secret program at a certain major university. I understand that you've had animals post here, in addition to people from the future, so I hope you won't have trouble believing me.
Anyway, the bad news is that none of you are real, but the really bad news is that George W. Bush is the main character of your story.
(Please take a few moments to cope with the psychological trauma that comes from being informed that you're fictional. I'll wait. It's okay, I've got a yo-yo.)
It's an hourlong drama/satire entitled "Bush League," in its fifth season on FX. The actor that plays Bush is someone you've never heard of, of course, as they don't exist in this dimension. The show tends to be TV-MA, with language and nudity and violence (wars, torture, etc.) and all that wonderful stuff.
As near as I can tell, our realities are very similar, up until the year 2000. (Granted, George Bush Sr. was retconned in, erasing former President--oh, wait, I don't think I'm allowed to tell you.) It's at that point that, according to our Republican party, the show's writers throw reality out the window and go crazy. You have to remember what the Republicans were like, back then. They had stances against nation-building, government spending, and they were very down on spin-happy politicians and what they called "moral relativism." In our reality, they're still more or less the same...but here in your reality (our TV show), they're Bizarro Republicans. (Or Mirror Universe Republicans, for you Trekkies out there.)
The show is known for its brilliant-but-sometimes-incomprehensible dialogue (think the zenith of NYPD Blue), especially where the main characters are concerned. You know, Rumsfeld's poetic nonsense, Bush's contradictory explanations that muddle the issues even more, Colin and Condi's verbal tap-dancing around foreign policy problems...the Republican critics say that it's completely unrealistic, as America would never tolerate a government that sounded that blatantly stupid. But that isn't their only complaint about the realism of the show. Something like 9/11 wouldn't happen under a Republican administration, they say, nor would someone like Osama still be at large. And they'd never handle a war that badly, allegedly:
"There's a part in the show where, uh, where the characters don't foresee something like 9/11 happen, and then, years later, they don't foresee the insurgency, the ethnic strife, or any of that stuff. That just shows the writers are clueless about our party's approach to the military."
"And don't forget about the levees breaking..."
"This is just propaganda, they're trying to make us look like social Darwinists--it'd never happen in reality. Katrina was a fictional straw-man to make it look like we need a big government that's ready to swoop in at the drop of a hat."
And worst of all, in their eyes, the administration is doing everything Republicans shouldn't do. I mean, all this torture and law-breaking stuff? That's blatant moral relativism! The RRs (Real Republicans, not fictional ones) say they believe in moral absolutes. Likewise, they'd never use spin, pageantry ("Mission Accomplished!", the anti-criticism cocoons), or deceptive framing to trick the American people into doing something that isn't a good idea. "That's Clinton-esque manipulation, we'd never do that!" You have nation-building, you have a government that's spending like there's no tomorrow, you have the government interfering in people's private lives, you have science and the economy being limited because of fringe religious beliefs...they claim that those things are out-of-character; plot-twists that have no basis in reality. I think they have an overly-romantic view of themselves, but, you have to admit, Bush is really over-the-top, in those areas.
To me, the funny thing is that, if a TV show like this were on in your fictionverse, your Republicans wouldn't like it at all. I mean, it has violence, it has morally grey areas, it has torture and rape, it has gay prostitutes doing spin for Bush, it portrays Republicans as being both incompetent and corrupt...I can only imagine all the fundie groups that would be crusading to get it off the air. But when it's real, they don't seem to mind at all. What's up with that?
Now, don't get me wrong--I used to really love this show. But lately, it's gotten really sensationalistic and even more over-the-top than it was before. It's like 24, where the writers want a stream of shocking moments, each more shocking than the last. They're really having to pile on the contrivances. I mean, the public is open to the idea that Iran is a threat, even after the lying about Iraq? Yeah, right. They still aren't outraged about the economy? Uh-huh. With the state of public education in the series, I can write that off to an extent, but, come on, nobody is that gullible. On the other hand, I'm really curious to see how they'll end the series. Will Bush end up free, in jail, or what? There are some other long-running mysteries that they've been hinting at, which will surely develop into new scandals.
Well, I've rambled on long enough. They tell me that the quantum-anchor that's keeping me here is about to run out of power, so they need to bring me back. I am allowed to bring back one of you with me, however. The experimentation will be painless and humane, I promise. I think you'll like reality much better than this television show. For some reason, it's easier to bring women back, and we don't want to steal you from your family, so, if you're a single woman between 20-30...! (Stop looking at me like that, it's a fringe-benefit of scientific exploration!)