To while away the time remaining before this affair is settled (at least partly) at noon (or is it 2PM?), I wanted to expolore the following historical parallel based on the character and competence of Chimpy.
Many historical parallels have been raised to put Bush in perspective - he's a Harding, he's a Hoover, etc. Most of these are grossly unfair to the comparee.
I have myself compared Bush to Harding (grievously unfair to ol' Warren, who knew he was out of his depth). and Kaiser Wilhelm (Kaiser Bill was a lot smarter and more imaginative).
Really, the only reasonable figure that fits the bill IMHO is Czar Nicolas II, of whom Wilhelm once (and justly) wrote "He is only fit to live on a farm and grow turnips"
Fits Bush to a T (its even better than Brezhnev, my runner-up choice, since Bush is so "faith based")
The presence of Karl Rove as a controlling influence on Bush makes it necessary to see whether this parallel can be extended to Nicky's famously corrupt and controlling advisor, Rasputin.
Is Rove a Rasputin?
I went and found the following from the Wikipedia
Be warned, it offers no reassurance as to how easy it will be to get rid of Rove - an indictment won't do it
From the Wiki:
The assassination of Rasputin
Prince Felix Yusupov, Duma member Vladimir Purishkevich, and the Tsar's cousin, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovitch Romanov, important members of the Saint Petersburg elite, finally took the lead in the decision to murder Rasputin because they viewed him as a source of major disgrace for the Tsar and his family. They killed him on the night of December 29/December 30, 1916 (16 December according to the Julian calendar still used in Russia at the time).
A recent investigation on Rasputin's autopsy and death has shown that there were actually four attackers, not three as in the widely accepted version. The fourth, who shot Rasputin in the head from a bush, was a British secret agent from the Secret Intelligence Service. They referred to Rasputin as "Dark Forces". The British sent an agent without consent from England to go murder Rasputin. As Rasputin was being murdered by Prince Felix Yusupov, Duma member Vladimir Purishkevich, and the Tsar's cousin, Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovitch Romanov, the British agent was hiding in a bush for fear that the Russians didn't want any witnesses. From a bush he put a bullet in Rasputin's head. The agent however did not have anything to do with throwing Rasputin in the lake, lacing his pastries with cyanide, or shooting him twice. One time in the liver, and once in the lung.
The events leading to Rasputin's death follow, in chronological order: The conspirators plotting his death arrived at Rasputin's home with cyanide-laced pastries, which Rasputin ate easily without dying, and while wearing a strange face. To this day it is unclear whether Rasputin realized what happened. When this failed, they shot him in the liver, and he fell on the floor, seemingly dead. After this, as the conspirators carried him to a nearby river to dispose of his body, he suddenly began trying to free himself. They dropped him and shot him again, this time in the lung. At the same time, the British agent hiding in a bush shot Rasputin in the head. The Russian conspirators then dumped him in the river, through a hole in the ice. Though unsupported by fact, some believe he survived for a short period of time in the iced-over river.
It is unclear why Rasputin survived potassium cyanide, if he indeed swallowed it. One possiblity is that he was a heavy drinker and thus suffered from achlorhydria (an absence of stomach acid, which is required to transform harmless potassium cyanide into lethal hydrogen cyanide). This would mean that the poison had no effect on him. Alternatively, the sugars in the wine and cakes may have inhibited the cyanide, or the chemical used may have been non-toxic, either deliberately or accidentally. A book by Edvard Radzinsky suggests Yusupov may have deliberately fluffed the murder, because he was in love with Rasputin. Nonetheless, even with poison, bullets and bruises, there is evidence that Rasputin still managed to move about under the freezing ice water before finally dying. Alexandra had the body drawn from the river three days later.
All three killers died much later from natural causes.
There is now proof that the British Secret Intelligence Service, worried that Rasputin might influence the Tsar to make peace with the German Empire thus freeing up German troops for the Western Front, was also involved.
Supposedly, Rasputin's penis was cut off and preserved after he died. A Russian museum of erotica displays an object they claim to be his penis, though there is no credible verification, which could be obtained in the form of DNA comparison. The object on display (presumably flaccid) is unusually large, though this contradicts the memoirs of one of his friends who saw him in a banya and claimed that his body looked pretty ordinary (except that he appeared much younger than his age). Additionally, there are questions whether it is possible there has been distortion of the spongy tissue from the preservation process; early reports of the preserved penis refer to it as dried, not preserved in formaldehyde. It is also possible the object on display belongs to another species, or is merely a part of a sea creature or mushroom.
Makes good pre Fitzmas reading, no?