Your one-stop-shop for blaming the Clenis™:
Actually the more I thought about it, here's a list I compiled of things that we can give the republicans to blame the Clenis™ for (to save them time) in reverse chronological order:
The Current Recession
9/11
Reagan getting shot (and then getting Alzheimers)
The Iranian Hostage Crisis
Disco
Jimmy Carter
The Fall of Saigon
Watergate
The Vietnam War
The Korean War
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich/the Japanese Empire
The Great Depression
The Spanish American War
All 19th Century Conflicts involving the US
Bad intelligence being passed on to George Armstrong Custer
The Assasination of Lincoln (he was a republican after all)
The Renaissance (we'd all be much more religious, hence grateful, if this hadn't happened)
The Fall of the Roman Empire
The Persecution of Jesus and Crucifixion
The fact that it wasn't anglos that crossed the land bridge from Siberia
The delay in the discovery of fire
The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs (my kids really wanted real dinosaurs, Bill)
The beginning of evolution (if you believe in such things) or...
The Great Flood for you true believers out there*
Cain and his Brother*
Evil Eve (definitely has Clenis™ written all over it)*
The Big Bang (or its late/untimely occurance)
I think that about covers it for me...add your own in the comments.
I'm glad to see you included the Fall of the Roman Empire. With that, and the fall of the Japanese Empire, when our Empire in the Middle East collapses, the Clentis(tm) will be able to take credit for a trifecta.
I don't see any mention the Fall of the House Romanov, which of course, presaged the rise of the great International Godless Atheistic Communism Conspiracy, which of course provided the impetus for our Beloved Ronald Reagan to rise to greatness as the Hero of the 20th century.
posted by: Lurch on 07.21.03 at 02:21 AM [permalink]
Oh, don't forget Enron and other corporate scandals. See, it was the "atmosphere of permissivieness" engendered by the Clenis™ that prompted corporate executives to do illegal and unethical things in the name of a lot of cash. Yes, those mighty corporate executives, Republicans all, took their cues from the Big Dawg.
You left out the Crusades and the Rise and Fall of the Ottoman Empire, as well as the Black Hole of Calcutta. Everyone knows Clenis™ was deep into the Hole.
So typical, that you would overload your list with events that bespeak European males.
Also-- the problem with your list is that it is fixed in time and space.
The beauty of the Clenis is that it can be used to explain ANYTHING-- no matter WHEN it occurs, ever, whether real or imaginary (and again, your list discriminates by focusing on REAL events, or at least events widely believed to be real).
That said-- let's look at important events you overlooked:
Designated hitter rule? The Clenis.
The McRib? A Clenis FAVORITE.
The Yugo? The Clenis.
Hillary Clinton? Well...
The late season collapse of the `69 Cubs
The loss to the San Diego Padres in the NLCS by the `84 Cubs
The one yard loss by the Tennessee Titans in the 2000 Super Bowl
Russia launching the first man in space in 1961
Obsessed? Nah. It takes so little effort to turn the R's willingness to blame everything on the Clenis that it's like shooting the proverbial fish in a barrel.
That said, whenever someone on talk radio blames something (and on that station, it can be literally anything) on Bill or Hillary, I tend to add the phrase, "along with burnt toast, daylight savings time, and the collapse of the American Basketball League."
posted by: no_plot on 07.23.03 at 04:31 PM [permalink]
For what its worth, I sucessfully blamed the Black Plague on Bill. The wingnuts weren't too historically aware so I don't know if this counts.
Also, I've seen a developing meme that Iraq, or at least the bad intelligence that led to it, can be laid in his lap as well. After all, they were using intelligence the CIA, et al developed in '98 and before.
posted by: Charles M on 07.23.03 at 10:54 PM [permalink]
