What If ________ Had Lived? The Presidential Edition

[Note: We had another blog competition this month. The topic is "What If X Had Lived". Here is Jeff's entry. Other entries will be posted soon.]

What If Ronald Reagan Had Lived?

After a brief struggle with Alzheimer's, Ronald Reagan came to on June 11th, 2004 and thanked the doctors for their hard work in finding a cure.

President Reagan then quietly lived for three more years in his Nursing Home in Bel-Air, before dying again of old age. [Sorry, you only get one "what if" per president, so I can't tell you what would have happened if he had survived a second time.]

What If Lincoln Had Lived?

After successfully reuniting the country after a period of tense civil war, President Lincoln then pursued his next goal--becoming the nation's fattest president ever. He practically lived in Ford's Theater eating nothing but buttered popcorn and Twizzlers.

John Wilkes Booth decided he'd save himself the trouble and just let Lincoln die of heart disease on his own.

Lincoln wound up edging out Taft by about 30 pounds. He also stopped showering for some reason.

What If Kennedy Had Lived?

The sound of gunfire was still echoing through the city of Dallas, Texas. A stunned crowd watched helplessly as President John F. Kennedy fell to the ground. Who would do such a thing? Why?

The Secret Service Agents knew they couldn't waste any time. They immediately pulled out their 60's-era pistols. "Everybody move!" Agent Johnson yelled to the still-gasping crowd. The crowd slowly parted as he ran towards the grassy knoll.

Lee Harvey Oswald began making his way through the crowd, darting left and right, weaving between various people hoping to lose the agents on his trail. As soon as he felt like he had appropriately blended into the crowd, he stood still and tried to act shocked and concerned like everybody else.

"Excuse me, Mr. Oswald?" asked a voice coming from behind him. Oswald turned around and was immediately pistol-whipped across the face.

"Good work, Johnson." said one agent as he pulled out his handcuffs. "You're going away for a long time, Oswald...the fact that you would kill a president all on your own with no help from anybody else is truly despicable."

"...but...but..." said Lee Harvey Oswald.

"Shut up, you liar!" spat back the Secret Service Agent.

"Wait...I think he might be trying to tell us something!" explained Agent Johnson.

Johnson then noticed an unusual reflection in Lee Harvey Oswalds' eyes. Johnson pulled out his gun, spun around in slow motion and fired his gun just in the nick of time.

"Why did you shoot that innocent hot dog vendor?" asked the other agent.

"Pull off his mask and you'll see why." said Johnson.

The hot dog vendor's mask was pulled off to reveal a filthy Italian man.

"A mafia hitman!"

"I had a feeling that Oswald wasn't working alone. And look over there--at the top of that building."

Johnson pointed out a KGB agent casually disassembling his sniper rifle and putting it back into its case.

"Unbelievable!" said the agent.

Johnson then squinted and fired his pistol towards the top of the nearby building, hitting the KGB agent causing him to stumble dramatically and fall off the ledge.

"There's one more perpetrator, here." said Johnson. Johnson jumped into the nearby crowd and tackled one man in a white sparkley jumpsuit with ridiculous sunglasses.

"Elvis Presley." stated Johnson.

"Elvis, why would you do this? I'm your biggest fan!" asked another agent.

"Ohhhh, I thought you knew I was a quarter Cuban!" stated the King of Rock and Roll. "JFK's behavior during that Cuban missile crisis had me aaaaall shook up!" Elvis quivered his mushy bottom lip and then shook his pelvis while giving his guitar a quick strum, causing several females to faint.

JFK stood up, trying to comprehend what had just happened.

"Er, uh, what er, uh...happened?" he asked with a charming Boston accent.

"He's ok!" exclaimed one secret service agent. The crowd cheered.

"You're free to go this time, Presley." stated Johnson.

JFK's survival was quite a miracle. Doctors held him in the hospital for two days to study his behavior. Despite having six bullets from four different guns entering and exiting his brain, he had defied medical science by surviving. He had regained full mobility and his behavior seemed unchanged. The scientists then burned him at the stake for presumably being a sorcerer.

What If George W. Bush Had Lived?

If George W. Bush had survived choking on a pretzel on that fateful night on January 14th, 2002, then I never would have become obsessed over the death of this nation's greatest leader, and I never would have been motivated to secretly invent the world's first time machine so that I could go back in time and save him.

As a result of me never having invented time travel, my time machine never falls into the wrong hands and thus Lincoln, Kennedy, and Garfield are never killed by time travelling bandits.

Because James A. Garfield is never killed by Time Bandits, he fulfils his destiny of serving honorably for 8 years as president of the United States, and becomes a role model of sorts for a young George W. Bush(who eagerly reads about his exploits in history books and biographies like "Garfield At Large" and "Garfield Chews The Fat").

So inspired was Bush that he devoted his entire life to becoming the same kind of person as Garfield. He earned straight A's in college, became a successful businessman, and became known as the greatest president of all time when he based his economic policy on "A Garfield Treasury"(James A. Garfield's famous book detailing his revolutionary economic theories), effectively making 90% of the country's population millionaires.

Due to Bush being such a great president, and due to the fact that he never died, I never had to go back in time to save his life, and thus Time Bandits never went back in time to kill James A. Garfield, and thus Bush was never paradoxically turned into an aloof, scandal-ridden, universally disliked rednecky president.

I think this story makes less sense on paper than it did in my head, but I swear this is how it really played out.